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Book of Poems 



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JOHN W. CHADWICK. 




BOSTON: 

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. 

1905. 









Copyright, 1888, 
By John W. Chadwice. 



TENTH EDITION REVISED AND ENLARGED. 



The University Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A 



To one all honesty and truths 

To one all tenderness and love^ — 
Father and Mother, — and to one 

Who dwells with happy saints above; — 
Thou, Sister, who wast more to me 

Than lips of mifie can ever say ; 
Dispeller of my darkest night. 

Dear prophet of my better day ; 
To one who calls me Brother still. 

Most kind to me and all of mine. 
Strong to uphold in time of need 

Though tremulous as the clinging vine; 
To one who full of years and grace 

Still called me by my earliest name. 
Whose simple praise I counted more 

Than any hollow voice of fame ; 
To one, of all my friends most dear, 

A spirit brave and wise and good. 
Whose lave has made me more a man, 

And made God's love more understood; 
And two, — of such the kingdom is, — 

Whose winsome prattle helps me more 
Than aught that I have ever gleaned 

From Bible-text or scholar's lore ; 
But most of all, to one whose hand 

Lies close in mine wher^er I roam ; 
My sterjtest critic, safest guide, 

The dear wife-angel of my home. 



«S73 



■^>> 



IV 





CONTENTS. 



POEMS OF NATURE. 

Page 

My Barnacles 13 

Whitsuntide 16 

By the Sea-shore 19 

Nirvana 22 

All for Each 25 

Rain after Drought 28 

Sea-sorcery 30 

The Golden-robin's Nest 33 

To the Sea 35 

Rhododendrons 36 

A September Gale 37 

Storm and Shine 39 

In Dog-days 41 

Wakeful 42 

Monadnock 43 

Leave-taking 44 

*' His Compassions fail not " 45 

Sea-born Venus 47 

"What do I know?" 49 

Works and Days 51 



6 CONTENTS. 

Page 

Crow's Nest 54 

In June 55 

A Song for the Harvest 56 

Snow-maidens 59 

A Sonnet , 60 

Bald-cap Revisited 61 

Lost and Found 68 



POEMS OF LIFE AND LOVE. 

Tete-a-Tete . 73 

The Gate called Beautiful • 76 

Real and Ideal 79 

A Vindication 81 

The Over-soul 82 

Carpe Diem 84 

" Why this Waste ? " 85 

The greatest Wonder 86 

From the Invisible 87 

Rowena Darling 88 

Unconsciousness 90 

Sub-consciousness 91 

The Story of Medardus 92 

A Timely Question . 96 

Not Yet 99 

Unrecognized 102 

The Hardest Lot 103 

The Rise of Man 104 

The Ineffable Name 105 

Starlight 106 



CONTENTS. 7 

Page 

Anti-discouragement 107 

Jan Steener's Ride no 

The Harbor-lights 114 

A Wedding-song 116 

Fate 117 

COMING AND GOING. 

The Oldest Story 121 

In an Unknown Tongue 123 

To Jacob Abbott 126 

A True Story 127 

What would they say ? 128 

The Father's Joy 130 

The Mother's Joy 131 

" Water and the Spirit " 133 

Catching Sunshine 136 

Gifts in Sleep 138 

The Children's Christmas 140 

Grace before Meat 142 

Annus Mirabilis 144 

Sadness and Gladness 146 

Little Hannah 150 

A Double Meaning 153 

Under the Snow 155 

COMFORT IN SORROW. 

A Song of Trust 159 

The Other Side 162 

Nos morituri te salutamus 164 



8 CONTENTS. 

Page 

Life after Death i66 

King Edwin's Feast 169 

Buddha's Lesson 172 

Death and Spring 173 

Sealed Orders 176 

No More Sea 179 

Three Happy Souls 181 

The Two Waitings 183 

Where? 185 

Their Thoughts and Our Thoughts 189 

Recognition 191 

Identity 192 

With a Book of Ballads 193 

The Heart of it 194 

Her Christmas 196 

The Trysting-place 198 

His Fortune 201 

Heard From 203 

A Talisman 204 

A Dedication 205 

In Nazareth Town 209 

A Legend of Good Poets 217 

HYMNS AND PRAISES. 

For the Last Time , 233 

Another Year 235 

Mugford's Victory 237 



CONTENTS. 9 

Page 

An Ode 242 

Invocation 250 

Easter Morning 251 

The Perfect Law 252 

John Weiss 253 

The Meeting-house 254 

Hymn for the Dedication of the Unitarian Building, Boston . 255 

Before Christmas 257 

Modjeska as Rosalind 259 

To A. W. R , 260 

Charles Sumner 261 

To Frederic Henry Hedge 262 

Hymn written for my Divinity-school Graduation .... 263 

Hymn for a Friend's Graduation 264 

A Dedication Hymn 266 

Hymn for a Friend's Ordination 267 

The Law of Liberty 268 

Lucretia Mott , 270 

William Henry Furness 271 

Ezra Stiles Gannett 275 

Seven Times Eleven 277 

Auld Lang Syne 279 



POEMS OF NATURE. 



POEMS OF NATURE. 




MY BARNACLES. 

OT those whose life is hid with God 
In the unfathomed sea ; 
Not those which gleam so milky-white 
Under my dory's lee, 



As o'er her side I softly lean, 

And watch the life below, — 
The strange, fair things which there abide, 

And those which come and go. 

Nor call I mine the crowds that cling 
To many a venturous keel, — 

A mimic world, whose tiny folk 
Through ocean spaces steal. 

Mine are the little creatures left 

By the retreating sea, 
Who long for it to come again, 

So masterful and free. 



14 MV BARNACLES. 

It goes : the hot sun scorches them, 

And lovers' careless feet 
Tread them to death, as if no life 

But theirs were passing sweet. 

It comes : it woos, it kisses them ; 

It drenches them with love ; 
It is a presence everywhere, — 

Around, beneath, above. 

And these are mine by lover's right ; 

And, when the tide is low, 
Down to its edge with scooping hands 

Or cup of shell I go, 

And dip the briny waters up, 
And bear them back to give 

To these wee things that long for them 
As dying men to live. 

How eagerly their shells dispart 

To take the moisture in ! 
And do I hear a tiny laugh, — 

The faintest, merriest din ? 

What think they of the sudden draught ? 

That 'tis the coming sea ? 
A little wave sent on before 

The mighty company ? 



AfV BARNACLES. \% 

And when they know it is not that, 

Do they reproach the hand 
Which brings the broken promise up 

From the ^n ave-beaten strand ? 

Beheve it not : they know the step 

Of the advancing sea, 
Better than maidens know the feet 

That come so stealthily. 

They take, with thanks, the human help, 

And still with patience wait 
For the vast love to come and fill 

The void it doth create. 

So wait our souls on Thee, O God I 

Their longing is from Thee : 
All human help must ever hint 

At Thy sufficiency. 

Come as the ocean comes, to give 

Its energy divine ; 
Fold us in Thy encircling arms, 

And make us wholly Tliine. 



Nf ARPLEHEAD, AugUSt, 187I. 



l6 WHITSUNTIDE. 




WHITSUNTIDE. 



UT from the city's flaming heart, 
Miles but a dozen away, 
I know of a mountain's secret shrine, 
Where lately I went to pray. 



But my prayer was not for the smallest boon : 
It was nothing but thanks and joy, 

As I roamed through the scented woodland paths 
With the heart of a happy boy ; 

As I touched the tips of the maple-boughs, 

Shaded with softest brown ; 
As the thistle showed me her armature. 

Frosted with silver}'- down. 

And, oh ! the gleam of the birches' stems, 

And the new green of the pines. 
And the hemlock fringes sweeping low, 

Till they touched the creeping vines 1 



WHITSUNTIDE. 1 7 

And every bank was studded thick 

With wild flowers sweet and rare ; 
While the ferns seemed made of spirit-stuff, 

They were so slight and fair. 

And the city was gleaming far away 

Through a veil of thin white mist, 
And billows of green rolled in between, 

Till the land and the water kissed. 

It was only a dozen miles away, 

As flies the laden bee, 
But to my free thought 'twas a hundred leagues, 

And more, to the shining sea. 

Could it be, I thought, in the world with this 

There was dust and heat and glare ? 
Could it be there was sorrow and hate and sin, 

And terror and wild despair ? 

Alas ! it could ; but for this one day 

I would live as if it could not ; 
I would dream that the world, from end to end, 

Was only this one dear spot. 

All should be sweet and cool and pure j 

All should be gay and free ; 
All men be as gentle, all women as true 

As the man and the woman with me. 



l8 WHITSUNTIDE. 

They had lived with the birds and the flowers so long 
They seemed to have learned their speech : 

Softer it fell on my drowsy sense 
Than the rain on a sandy beach. 

They could call the trees and the flowers by name ; 

They could tell me of all their times ; 
And their talk was a poem that needed not 

The help of a poet's rhymes. 

Where was the service that day, think you ? 

Down in the valley below, 
Where the sweet-toned bell of the village church 

Was swinging to and fro ; 

Or was it there, on the mountain-side, 

Where the Spirit, with two or three, 
Was saying softly, in various speech, 

" Let the little ones come unto me ? " 



1872. 




£V THE SEA-SHORE. IQ 




BY THE SEA-SHORE. 



HE curved strand 

Of cool, gray sand 
Lies like a sickle by the sea ; 

The tide is low, 

But soft and slow 
Is creeping higher up the lea. 



The beach-birds fleet, 

With twinkling feet, 
Hurry and scurry to and fro, 

And sip, and chat 

Of this and that 
Which you and I may never know. 

The runlets gay, 

That haste away 
To meet each snowy-bosomed crest, 

Enrich the shore 

With fleeting store 
Of art-defying arabesque. 



20 BY THE SEA-SHORE, 

Each higher wave 

Doth touch and lave 
A miDion pebbles smooth and bright 3 

Straightway they grow 

A beauteous show, 
With hues unknown before bedight. 

High up the beach, 

Far out of reach 
Of common tides that ebb and flow, 

The drift-wood's heap 

Doth record keep 
Of storms that perished long ago. 

Nor storms alone : 

I hear the moan 
Of voices choked by dashing brine, 

When sunken rock 

Or tempest shock 
Crushed the good vessel's oaken spine. 

Where ends the beach, 

The cliffs upreach 
Their lichened bastions centuries old ; 

And here I rest, 

While all the west 
Grows brighter with the sunset's gold. 



BY THE SEA-SHORE. 21 

Far out at sea, 

The ships that flee 
Alon^- the dim horizon's Hne 

Their sails unfold 

Like cloth of gold, 
Transfigured by that light divine. 

A calm more deep, 

As 'twere asleep, 
Upon the weary ocean falls ; 

So low it sighs. 

Its murmur dies, 
While shrill the boding cricket calls. 

peace and rest ! 
Upon the breast 

Of God himself I seem to lean, 

No break, no bar 

Of sun or star : 
Just God and I, with naught betweeiL 

Oh, when some day 
In vain I pray 
For days like this to come again, 

1 shall rejoice 
With heart and voice 

That one such day has ever been. 



Marblehead, 1875. 



22 NIRVANA, 




NIRVANA. 

LONG tl:e scholar's glowing page 
I read the Orient thinker's dream 
Of things that are not what they seem, 

Of mystic chant and Soma's rage. 



The sunlight flooding all the room 
To me again was Indra's smile, 
And on the hearth the blazing pile 

For Agni's sake did fret and fume. 

Yet most I read of who aspire 
To win Nirvana's deep repose, — 
Of that long way the spirit goes 

To reach the absence of desire. 

But through the music of my book 
Another music smote my ear, — 
A tinkle silver-sweet and clear, — 

The babble of the mountain-brook. 



NIRVANA. 23 

*' Oh ! leave," it said, "your ancient seers; 
Come out into the woods with me ; 
Behold an older mystery 
Than Buddhist's hope or Brahman's fears ! 

The voice so sweet I could but hear. 
I sallied forth, with staff in hand. 
Where, mile on mile, the mountain land 

Was radiant with the dying year. 

I heard the startled partridge whirr. 
And crinkling through the tender grass 
I saw the striped adder pass. 

Where dropped the chestnut's prickly bun 

I saw the miracle of life 

From death upspringing evermore ; 

The fallen tree a forest bore 
Of tiny forms with beauty rife. 

I gathered mosses rare and sweet, 

The acorn in its carven cup ; 

' Mid heaps of leaves, wind-gathered up. 
I trod with half-remorseful feet. 

The maple's blush I made my own, 
The sumac's crimson splendor bold, 
The poplar's hue of paly gold, 

The faded chestnut, crisp and brown. 



24 NIRVANA. 

I climbed the mountain's shaggy crest, 
Where masses huge of molten rock, 
After long years of pain and shock. 

Fern-covered, from their wanderings rest. 

Far, far below the valley spread 
Its rich, roof-dotted, wide expanse ; 
And further still the sunlight's dance 

The amorous river gayly led. 

But, still, with all I heard or saw 

There mingled thoughts of that old time, 
And that enchanted Eastern clime 

Where Buddha gave his mystic law, — 

Till, wearied with the lengthy way, 
I found a spot where all was still, 
Just as the sun behind the hill 

Was making bright the parting day. 

On either side the mountains stood, 
Masses of color rich and warm ; 
And over them, in giant form. 

The rosy moon serenely glowed. 

My heart was full as it could hold ; 

The Buddha's paradise was mine ; 

My mountain-nook its inmost shrine, 
The fretted sky its roof of gold. 




ALL FOR EACH. 25 

Nirvana's peace my soul had found, — 
Absence complete of all desire, — 
While the great moon was mounting higher 

And deeper quiet breathed around. 

Catskii.ls, October, 1872. 

ALL FOR EACH. 



SIT on the rocky headland 

That juts from the queer old town, 
Where the lichen-covered ledges 

To meet the tides run down. 

There are voices of children ringing 
Through the still morning air, 

And a lusty cock is crowing, 
And, down on the water there, 

A single rower is fretting 
The sea with a gentle sound, 

And the breath of an ended summer 
Is whispering around. 

The grasses seem to hear it. 
And shudder as if with pain ; 

It is full of a sad foreboding 
Of the Jotuns' icy reign. 



26 ALL FOR EACH. 

The dories sway at their moorings, 
As they catch the fitful breeze ; 

And they sidle against each other, 
As if themselves to please. 

But 'tis only me they are pleasing, — 
The picture is all for me, — 

And the gray clouds sailing over. 
And the sunlight on the sea ; 

And the white sails of the vessels, 
That gleam in the morning sun ; 

And the sounds of far-off labor, 
And the shadows cold and dun ; 

And the butterfly, knowing surely 
That summer is ended for him ; 

And the bee, that must wander widely 
To fill his sacs to the brim. 

And mine is the insect's rapture, 
And mine is the sea-gull's pride, 

As he sees his whiteness mirrored 
Far down in the gleaming tide. 

And all the ships in the offing. 
Outward and inward bound, 

Are mine, and with my ventures 
Go sailing the world around. 



ALL FOR EACH. ^7 

And these are but one day's riches, 

The gatherings of an hour ; 
But every day is mighty, 

Each night is a night of power. 

For all of the brown old planet, 

All of the deep blue sky, 
All that the ear can harken, 

All that can fill the eye. 

Is mine by the Law of Beauty ; 

And men may give or withhold, 
When He who is God of Beauty 

Her secret to us has told. 

Mapblehead, September, 1873. 




28 



RAIN AFTER DROUGHT. 




RAIN AFTER DROUGHT. 

FEW short hours ago, and all the land 
Lay as in fever, faint and parched with 
drought ; 

And so had lain, while many a weary day 
Dragged the long horror of its minutes out. 

The juiceless fruits fell from the dusty trees ; 

The farmer doubted if the Lord was good, 
As, sad, he watched the labor of his hands 

Made useless by the Day-god's fiery mood. 

The hot streets sickened in the burning glare ; 

The roadsides lost the glory of their green ; 
Nc second growth sprang up to glad the eye, 

Where once the mower with his scythe had been. 



A few short hours ago ! And now, behold, 
Freshness and beauty gleam on every side ; 

The earth has drunk its fill, and all about 
The amber pools are stretching far and wide. 



RAIN AFTER DROUGHT. ^9 

A million drops are flashing in the sun ; 

The springs far down the upper wonder know ; 
The farmer laughs, and little cares how fast 

Through his torn hat the cooling streamlets flow. 

And all the fields and pastures seem to say, 

With joyous smile that I shall ne'er forget, 
And all the flowers and trees in chorus join, 
" We knew 'twould come ! He never failed us yet." 



(Jod of my life, as God of all beside. 

This lovely wonder, which Thy hand hath wrought, 
Quickens in thought the mercies manifold 

Which Thy great love into my soul hath brought. 

For I have lain, full oft, as hot and dry 
As ever earth in summer's fiercest hour ; 

And the long days, slow creeping over me, 
Brought me no tokens of Thy gracious power. 

Then, at Thy word, down fell Thy spirit-rain ; 

I felt its coolness all my being through ; 
Made fresh and clean and joyous every whit, 

I heard the whisper, " I make all things new." 

But mine, alas ! was not the holy faith 

The parched earth felt through all her thirsty hours 
I was in fear that never more again 

Should I be quickened by the heavenly powers. 




30 SEA-SORCERV 

So shall it be no more ; but though I lie 
For many days as one Thou dost forget, 

Recalling this glad hour, my heart shall say, 

" I know 'twill come 1 He never failed me yet." 

Marblehead, August, 1870. 



SEA-SORCERY. 

HEERILY blew the soft mid-summer wind, 
And morn' first freshness had not left the 
sky, 

As our small craft shot past the harbor-buoy 
And left the light-house far upon the lee, 
And stood right out into the glistening bay ; 
Leaving behind the sad and sullen roar 
Of the great waves that broke upon the rocks, 
Tossing the rock-weed madly to and fro ; 
Leaving behind the voices clear and sweet 
Of happy children playing on the beach, 
And the one ancient, immemorial man 
Whose doiy rocked amid the boiling surf, 
While he, as ever, sat with eyes cast down, 
Wondering what luck his lines would bring that day. 
Dimmer and dimmer grew the distant shore ; 
Down dropped the spires below the violet line 
Where sea and sky were married into one, 
Ar.d still we sailed. 



SEA-SORCERY. II 

And more and more there fell 
Upon our spirits such a subtle charm, 
So weird a spell of sea-wrought sorcer}^, 
That all things seemed unto our spirits strange. 
Strange seemed the sky above, and strange the sea, 
And strange the vessels flitting to and fro 
Across the bay. Strange seemed we each to each 
And to ourselves ; and, when our voices smote 
The stillness, half they seemed like voices heard 
In lives long gone, or lives that were to be. 
Ivittle we spoke, and less of words our own ; 
But now and then some poet's music heard 
In that old time before we sailed away, 
It might have been a hundred years ago. 
Dream-like grew all the past, until it seemed 
To be no past of ours. 

But when the sun 
Began to linger towards the western verge. 
We turned our prow and bade him be our guide ; 
Yet more in doubt than faith that we should find 
The land from which we once had sailed away, — 
Ay, whether such a land there was at all, 
Save as some baseless phantom of our brains. 
And when again we heard the roaring surf. 
And saw the old, familiar, storm-bleached crags, 
And the long curve of pebbly beach beyond, 
The wonder grew, till it was keen as pain. 
Whether indeed we sailed away that morn, 



32 SEA-SORCERY. 

Or in some dim gray morning of the world ; 

Whether some few brief hours had flitted by 

Between the morning and the evening stars, 

Or generations had arrived and gone, 

And states had fallen 'mid the crash of arms, 

And justice grown more ample on the earth. 

There sat the ancient, immemorial man, 

Tending his line amid the boiling surf, 

And still the charm was not dissolved quite : 

So long had he been there, it seemed not strange 

That he should sit a thousand years or more, 

Paying no heed to aught that passed him by. 

At length our moorings reached, our anchor dropped, 

Amid a crowd we stood upon the shore, — 

A crowd whose faces looked a trifle strange ; 

Till from among them came a little child, 

And put her hand in mine and lifted up 

Her face for kisses. Then the charm was snapped ; 

And I went homeward, glad to be restored 

To the firm earth and its familiar ways. 



1876. 




THE GOLDEN-ROBIN'S NEST, 33 




THE GOLDEN-ROBIN'S NEST. 

HE golden-robin came to build his nest 
High in the elm-tree's ever-nodding crest ; 
All the long day, upon his task intent, 
Backward and forward busily he went, 



Gathering from far and near the tiny shreds 
That birdies weave for little birdies' beds ; 
Now bits of grass, now bits of vagrant string, 
And now some queerer, dearer sort of thing. 

For on the lawn, where he was wont to come 
In search of stuff to build his pretty home. 
We dropped one day a lock of golden hair 
Which our wee darling easily could spare j 

And close beside it tenderly we placed 
A lock that had the stoojDing shoulders graced 
Of her old grandsire ; it was white as snow, 
Or cherry-trees when they are all ablow. 



34 THE GOLDEN-ROBIN'S NEST. 

Then throve the golden-robin's work apace ; 
Hundreds of tunes he sought the lucky place 
Where sure, he thought, in his bird-fashion dim, 
Wondrous provision had been made for him. 

Both locks, the white and golden, disappeared ; 
The nest was finished, and the brood was reared ; 
And then there came a pleasant summer's day 
When the last golden-robin flew away. 

Ere long, in triumph, from its leafy height, 
We bore the nest so wonderfully dight. 
And saw how prettily the white and gold 
Made warp and woof of many a gleaming fold. 

But when again the golden-robins came, 
Cleaving the orchards with their breasts aflame, 
Grandsire's white locks and baby's golden head 
Were lying low, both in one grassy bed. 

And so more dear than ever is the nest 
Ta'en from the elm-tree's ever nodding crest. 
Little the golden-robin thought how rare 
A thing he wrought of white and golden hair I 

July, 1874. 



TO THE SEA. 35 




TO THE SEA. 

THOU that art so nearly infinite ! 

Lashing thy shores that drip with tangled 
weed ! 
Listening to thy deep voice, another speaks 

And tells me of the Infinite indeed. 



Thy hollow caves are voiceful with His name, 
Whose love is deeper than thy deepest place, 

Whose inspirations are more strong and free 
Than the great storms that oversweep thy face. 

Oh, never time was yet, since first He made 
The purple pillars of thy farthest bound. 

That thou didst cease from murmuring to the shore, 
And wooing it with sweet and holy sound. 

And He that is the shoreless Infinite, 
And I thai am an island on His breast, 

Live in such wise that evermore he woos 
My soul and fills it with his great unrest. 



36 RHODODENDRONS. 

And as I hear thy voice, may He my prayer, 
That I may Hsten while His music beats, 

And, hke the sea-shell, mm^mur back again 
That which once heard it evermore repeats. 

So shall my life as bravely fashioned be 

As are these pebbles on thy shining strand j 

So shall my soul, as do thy countless waves, 
Make haste to do His uttermost command. 



RHODODENDRONS. 

YOU great beauties, who can ever know 
How passing fair you are to look upon ! 
I, 'mid your glories slowly wandering on, 
And almost faint with joy that you can glow 
With hues so rich and varied, row on row, 
A corner in my heart for him alone 
Must keep, who hath in your fair petals shown 
Such things to us as never had been so 
But for his loving patience, sweet and long ; 
Ay, and no less to the clear eye of God, 
Which never yet in all His endless years, 
Till you out-bloomed in colors pure as song, 
Had seen such fairness springing from the sod 
As this which fills our eyes with happy tears. 




A SEPTEMBER GALE, 2>7 




A SEPTEMBER GALE. 

LOSE as a limpet clinging to the rocks, 

Battered and drenched by the remorseless 
gale, 

I watch the wild commotion it has made, 
Through the dim twilight peering eagerly. 
The waves are running higher than the masts 
Of the small craft they drive so swift along, 
Driven themselves by the loud-cracking whip 
Of the fierce wind, and chasing each the next 
With foam, like hair, blown wild before the blast. 
That flying fringe of foam from every wave 
Is like the breath of restless, fiery steeds. 
As from their quivering nostrils it is driven 
'Gainst the hot flanks that steam just on before, 
When all the field is torn with flying hoofs. 
And all the air is full of cheering cries, 
A moment ere the hosts in battle join. 
The waves, like steeds, are pawing at the rocks. 
And snorting loud and roaring as in pain ; 
While, like a streamer long, the flying spray 



38 A SEPTEMBER GALE. 

Tugs at the harbor-buoy, and like a dog 

In leash, or tiger chained, at every pier 

Some vessel strains and frets and chafes in vain. 

And there are cries of quick and sharp command. 

Thick-spiced with oaths, borne shoreward on the wind 

From schooners' decks as they drift hopelessly, 

Dragging their anchors at their cables' length, 

To dash, at last, upon the pitiless rocks 

And strew their tackle on the whelming sea. 

And, as I watch the elemental rage. 

My heart is wild with joy and ecstasy. 

Now all is dark, and now a sudden flash 
Of lightning from an ebon mass of cloud 
Turns every crest to gold ; to gold the masts 
Of every vessel hurrying to her doom ; 
To gold the light-house at the harbor's mouth, 
Sending its steadfast warning o'er the bay j 
And by that flash I see, not far away, 
A woman's face, as pale as palest death, 
And haggard, too, with speechless agony. 
My joy is done. O woman. Heaven keep 
Thy husband 'mid the smiting of the seas, 
And bring him safely to thine arms again, 
And to the mute caresses of his babes ! 

Marblehead, September, 1874. 



STORM AND SHINE. 39 




STORM AND SHINE. 
I. 

NOTHER sunless, dreary, weary day ! 

How the poor tree-tops shiver 1 The dead 
leaves 
Fall sullenly upon the rain-soaked earth ; 

Loud and more loud the wild nor'easter gi-ieves. 

And can it be that ever sunlight shone ? 

And can it be that ever skies were blue ? 
And can it be that ever breezes soft 

The windward bee scarce hindered as he flew? 

And what if nevermore the earth should lie 
By the warm wind enchanted and caressed ? 

And what if this gray shroud which now she wears 
Were that of her last, long, eternal rest ? 

11. 

Was ever day so beautiful as this ? 

Was ever wind so soft, or sky so fair ? 
Was ever grass so green, and all the world 

So fresh ai d pure and sweet beyond compare ? 



40 STORM AND SHINE. 

How the glad tree-tops glisten in the sun ! 

How, tilting there, the robin flings abroad 
A song so gay that all the earth through him 

Seems giving thanks and praises to our God ! 

And can it be that skies were ever dark? 

That sunlight ever was desired in vain? 
That ever fell, day after weary day. 

The hoarded torrents of the cheerless rain? 

So beautiful, it seems it cannot die ! 

Or die but to bring others to their birth, — 
Days fair as this, that with unending joy 

Shall stir the pulses of the happy earth. 

Chesterfield, 1882. 




IN DOG-DA YS. 



41 




IN DOG-DAYS. 

SEE the landscape tremble in the heat, 
I hear the murmur of the rustling trees ; 
I close my eyes, and to myself I seem 
As one who floats 'mid odorous Indian seas. 
Scarce draw the sails in the dull opiate air ; 

Scarce stirs the breeze the opalescent calm ; 
Upon the sleeping islands that we pass, 

Scarce move the fringes of the shadowy palm. 
And, as I sail, I seem to hear the voice 

Of one who reads some drowsy Eastern tale, 
Telling of men untouched of all the ills 

Which for our hands and for our hearts prevail ; 
Ay, to be living in those days I seem. 
And in those days still dreaming that I dream. 



Chesterfield, iSSi. 



A2 



WAKEFUL. 




WAKEFUL. 

THOU that bringest sweet surcease from care, 
Long have I sought thy drowsy spell in vain j 
Yet less, that yonder hoarsely-shrieking train 
Doth to invade these sacred precincts dare, 
Than that a thousand images most fair 

Are thronging all the spaces of my brain, — 
Visions of beauty without fleck or stain, 
Born of the day's delight beyond compare. 
For once I chide thee not that thou dost stay. 

Better than thee these memories vague and sweet 
Of joys that filled the heart of all the day, 

Made yet more dear because they were so fleet. 
And thanks more still than faintliest whispered prayer 
To Him whose love hath made the world so fair. 



White Mountains, 1875. 



MONADNOCK. 43 




MONADNOCK. 

HE merest bulge above the horizon's rim 

Of purplish blue, which you might think a cloud 
Low lying there, — that is Monadnock proud, 
Full seventy miles away. But far and dim 
Although it be, I still can without glass 
Descry, as I were standing happy there 
Upon the topmost ledges gray and bare, 
Something which with the shadows will not pass, — 
A vision that abides : a fair young girl 
Lying her length ; her hair all disarrayed 

By the bold mountain wind ; her cheeks aglow ; 
As if that rocky summit should unfurl 

A rose of June ! And what if I had said, 
" Thrice fair Monadnock with her lying so ! " 

Chesterfield, August 24, 1879. 



44 LEA VE- TAKING. 




LEAVE-TAKING. 



HIS is the try sting-place ; from day to day, 



Without so much as wilHng to be here, 
The laughing hours have seen me at thy side, 
Because thou art so beautiful and dear. 



But this day is the last. To-morrow morn 
Back to the city's mournful streets I hie, 

There to be cheated by the art of man 
Of God's inheritance of air and sky. 

But oh ! for once thou art too beautiful ! 

Thy beauty makes it agony to part. 
Sea, thou art cruel, so, on this last day, 

To try the weakness of thy lover's heart. 

To-day, methinks, thou need'st not so have smiled, 
Like some proud beauty, full of high disdain ; 

Oh ! hide thy fairness Mdth some misty veil, 
And lighten so the burden of my pain. 



''HIS COMPASSIONS FAIL NOT.'' 45 

Nay, do not hearken, for there is no need ; 

This sudden rush of tears will do as well : 
One more last look, and then thy voice shall sound 

As sounds, far off, some solemn vesper-bell. 

But something of thy freshness in my heart 
Will linger still, and permanently bless ; 

And I shall hear, 'mid things that come and go, 
The murmur of thy everlastingness. 

September, 1873. 



"HIS COMPASSIONS FAIL NOT." 



HE farmer chides the tardy spring, 
The sun withholds his wonted ray, 
The days are dull and cold and gray 

No shadow doth the maple fling. 



From snow-clad peaks and icy main. 
The north wind cometh wet and chill, 
And evermore the clouds distil 

The hoarded treasure of the rain. 

But still, O miracle of good ! 

The crocus springs, the violets peep. 
The straggling vines begin to creep, 

The dandelion gilds the sod. 




46 ''HIS COMPASSIONS FAIL NOT." 

The rain may fall in constant showers, 
The south-wind tarry on its way ; 
But through the night and through the day 

Advance the summer's fragrant hours. 

And though the north-wind force him back, 
The song-bird hurries from the South, 
With summer's music in his mouth. 

And studs with songs his airy track. 

What then, my soul, if thou must know 
Thy days of darkness, gloom and cold. 
If joy its ruddy beams withhold, 

And grief compels my tears to flow ? 

And what if, when with bended form 
I praise the gods for sorrows past, 
There ever comes a fiercer blast, 

And darker ruin of the storm ? 

As tarry not the flowers of June 
For all the ill the heavens can do, 
And, to their inmost natures true. 

The birds rejoice in sweetest tune : 

So, Father, shall it be with me ; 

And whether winds blow foul or fair, 
Through want and woe, and toil and care, 

Still will I struggle up to Thee \ 




SEA-BORN VENUS. 47 

That, though my winter days be long, 
And brighter skies refuse to come, 
My Hfe no less may sweetly bloom, 

And none the less be full of song. 

Brooklyn, iS68. 

SEA-BORN VENUS. 

WONDER not men fabled as they did, 
In that old rapture of Hellenic days. 

Of Venus as the daughter of the Sea, 
From its white foam upspringing, full of 
grace. 

For I have watched thy beauty hour by hour. 
Lying at thy dear side all hushed and still, 

Bidding thee work on me thy secret spells. 
And with thy fulness all my being fill. 

" Ay, sea-born beauty, but how sea-born love ? " 
I hear the doubter question and confess. 

But who, still young, has wandered by thy side, 
The old Hellenic riddle well may guess. 

Thou art the mother of all tender thoughts, 

Of longings and of infinite desires ; 
The yearning of thy never-ending plaint 

A kindred yearning in our souls inspires. 



4^ SEA-BORN VENUS. 

When youths and maidens walk thy shining strand, 
And Hsten to thy harmonies and hymns, 

There is a mist that is not of the sea 

That gathers fast and all their vision dims. 

Their speech is silence, but it tells a tale 

Of that which makes the merry world go round j 

Thou dost interpret for them every thought 

Which, sudden, they in their fresh hearts have found 

And so thou art the lover's go-between ; 

So love that knows itself is born of thee ; 
And hearts already pledged become more fond 

While listening to thy murmurings, O Sea ! 

Ay, love is born of thee, and deeper love 

Than ever flows to any human goal, — 
Love of that Spirit who in every tide 

Hints at the deeper currents of the soul. 

We love thee best, since thou art type of Him : 

Thou freshening earth as she through space is hurled, 

And He, the ocean of the universe, 

Fi eshening for aye the courses of the world. 



'872. 



''WHAT DO I KNOW?'' 4-) 




"WHAT DO I KNOW ?" 

Motto on Montaigne's seal. 



PON this heaven-kissing hill, 



On this mid-summer day of days, 
That sad old question shoulders in 

Among my thoughts of prayer and praise, 



What do I know ? Not much, alas ! 

Of all the breadth and depth and height 
That presses upon soul and sense 

From day to day, from night to night. 

And yet I know the light is sweet. 
And pleasant 'tis to see the sun, — 

What time he climbs the eastern hills. 
And when his course is nearly done. 

I know the look of wind-blown grass, 

The quiet rustle of the corn. 
The lusty song the thrasher sings 

To ushei in the glowing morn. 



50 « WHAT DO I KNOW?'- 

I know to what a merry tune 
Yon river ripples on its way, 

And how, along its leafy brink, 

The drooping branches softly sway. 

I know the springs that trickle down 
Through many a rod of brush and fern, 

Divinely cool, nor Zeus himself 

Drank better drink from Hebe's urn. 

I know what fine enchantments lurk 
In clouds that trail their shadows dun 

O'er hill and vale, or lie at ease 
Along the west at set of sun. 

I know the night is calm and cool, 
And welcome when the day is spent ; 

And when it fills the sky with stars, 
Fills all my soul with sweet content. 

But in the worlds of thought and love 
Yet more and better things I know 

Than this mid-summer day of days, 
For all its treasures, has to show. 

I know that many friends are kind. 
That many hearts are fond and true ; 

I know — but hush ! I may not tell 
The half I know, Montaigne, to you. 



WORKS AND DAYS. 

Wherefore, O skeptic, go and try 
Your question in some other ear ; 

I know enough to keep my heart 
Brimful of joy from year to year. 

Chesierfield, Mass., July, 1875. 



51 



WORKS AND DAYS. 




O break the gently undulating sea 
With oars it seems to fondle lovingly, 
And watch the eddies as they circle back 
Along my winding track. 

To rest upon my oars, and, as I glide 
With wind and current, in the cooling tide 
To dip my hands, while something seems to say 
Within me, " Let us pray." 

As near as may be to the fringed shore 
To keep my boat, and lean her gunnel o'er, 
Watching the many-colored floor, untrod 
Save by the feet of God. 

His ways are in the deep ; His sunlight, too, 
Pierces its deeps of shadow through and through. 
And touches many a wonder that abides 
Below the lowest tides. 



52 WORKS AND DAYS. 

How beautiful the sunlight on the sea, 
When waves by millions twinkle as in glee ! 
But 'tis the sunlight in the sea whose gleam 
To me doth fairest seem. 

It glorifies the pebbles with its rays ; 
It turns gray sand to perfect chrysoprase ; 
Plays with the amber tresses of the rocks 
As with a maiden's locks. 

Anon in some sequestered nook I lie, 
And see the yachts, white-winged, go sailing by, 
A.nd feel, whichever quickest onward flies. 
Mine is the truest prize. 

I watch the race with neither hope nor fear, 
Since none than other is to me more dear ; 
My prize the perfect beauty of the sight, — 
Unselfish, pure delight. 

I sit and wonder what the cliffs would say 
If they could speak, remembering the day 
When first, " Thus far, no farther," it was said ; 
" Here thy proud waves be stayed ! " 

Since then what laughter and what cry and moan 
The sea has offered up to them alone ! 
What suns have kissed, what storms have left their 
blight ! 
What silence of the nidit ! 



WORKS AND DAYS, 53 

So wondering, how strange it is and still, 
Save where, a mile away, the drogers fill 
Their battered dories with the shingly store 
Of the long-hoarding shore ! 

That far-off sound is but a gauge that tells 
How deep the silence is ; like Sunday bells 
Which, ringing, tell the resting village o'er 
How still it was before. 

These are my works and days : in these I drown 
The cares and troubles of the noisy town, 
And let it seethe and rumble as it may, 
Day after weary day. 

But when the summer days are sweetly fled, 
And great fall clouds go floating overhead ; 
When asters lurk along the pleasant ways 
With golden-rod ablaze ; 

Then I will back again to faces see 
Than all these sights more beautiful to me ; 
Where friendliest voices wait for me to hear, 
Than all these sounds more dear. 

Marblehfad, 187 1. 



54 CROWS NEST, 




CROW'S NEST. 

UILDING our beacon fire, we spread our feast 
On the bare cliff high up against the sky ; 
Eastward a few lone clouds went sailing by, 
As more and more the sunset glow increased, 
And eveiy sound of bird and leaf had ceased ; 
Far down below, we could the stream espy, 
Seeming at rest all motionless to lie ; 
And life from every burden seemed released. 
Range beyond range, we saw the wooded heights ; 

And far away, backed against paly gold, 
Their rightful lords — unspeakable delights ! — 

Their purple splendor sturdily uphold. 
While climbing slow, the moon and eve's first star 
Led every thought to heights more cool and far. 

White Mountains, 1875. 



IN JUNE. 



55 




IN JUNE. 

** I show you a mystery.** 

FRIEND, your face I cannot see, 

Your voice I cannot hear, 
But for us both breaks at our feet 
The flood-tide of tlie year; — 
The summer-tide all beautiful 

With fragrance, and with song 
Sung by the happy-hearted birds 
To cheer the months alons:. 



And so the mystery I show 

Is this, all simple-sweet : 
Because God's summer-tide so breaks 

At yours and at my fe^t, 
We're not so very far apart 

As it at first would seem ; 
We're near each other ifi the Lord; 

The miles are all a dream. 



Junk 19, 1873. 



56 A SONG FOR THE HARVEST, 




A SONG FOR THE HARVEST. 



OME, list to a song for the Harvest : 
Thanksgiving and honor and praise 
For all that the bountiful Giver 
Hath given to gladden our days. 



For the grain and the corn in their plenty, 
For the grapes that were gathered with song ; 

For pumpkins so brave with their yellow, 
They had lived upon sunbeams so long ; 

For cranberries down in the meadow, 

And the buckwheat that flames on the hill, 

And blueberries tempting the children 
To wander and pick them at will ; 

For the peaches that blush through their pallor, 

Or glow like a pretty quadroon, 
As they dream of the sun in the morning, 

Or welcome his kisses at noon ; 



A SONG FOR THE HARVEST. S7 

For the sweet-smelling hay and the clover, 
That sweeten the breath of the kine ; 

And the apples that lingered, as dreading 
The air and the light to resign. 

And not for the fruit-harvest only 
We offer our thanks and our praise ; 

Not less have the leaves and the blossoms 
Made better and brighter the days. 

The leaves that delight with their greenness, 
That soften the heat with their shade, 

And rustle so crisply in Autumn, 
To startle the lover and maid. 

For the blossoms that whiten in May-time 
The ground, as with snow, as they fall ; 

For the flowerets that whisper their meanings 
In cottage and hovel and hall. 

Ay, thanks for the harvest of Beauty ! 

For that which the hands cannot hold ! 
The harvest eyes only can gather, 

Which only our hearts can enfold ! 

We have reaped it on mountain and moorland ; 

We have gleaned it from meadow and lea ; 
We have garnered it in from the cloudlands ; 

We have bound it in sheaves from the sea. 



58 A SONG FOR THE HAKVESI. 

And thanks that the whole of the harvest 

Is not for the children of men ; 
That the birds and the beasts are remembered, 

The dwellers in river and fen ; 

That He giveth them meat in due season, 
And heareth their cry when they call, — 

The tiniest, weakest among them. 
The hu":est and strongfest of all. 



^^V^vJl. «,XXV^ OCXV^Al^V 



But the song it goes deeper and higher ; 

There are harvests which eye cannot see : 
They ripen on mountains of Duty, 

I'hey are reaped by the brave and the free. 

And these have been gathered and garnered: 
Some golden with honor and gain, 

And some as with heart's-blood made ruddy, 
The harvests of sorrow and pain. 

Alas, for our pitiful singing ! 

For all it has lasted so long, 
The half of our rapture and wonder 

Has not been expressed in our song. 

But He who is Lord of the Harvest — - 
The Giver who gladdens our days — 

Will know if our hearts are repeating, 
I'hanksgiving and honor and praise. 



1871 



SA'O W-MAIDENS. 5 Q 




SNOW-MAIDENS. 

WINTER day upon the hill 

Where we our summer joyance took. 
And all things to our pleasure bent 
As willows to a winding brook. 

And there, upon the spot that knew 

Of baby joy and maiden grace. 
Whirling about in ghostly dance, 

Are creatures of another race. 

Tall, pale, and wonderfully fair, 

The chilly sunlight through them shines : 
They dance with interwoven curves ; 

They move in wavy, mystic Hnes. 

Weird sisterhood, your secret tell ! 

Are ye the ghosts of vanished days, — 
Of joys that will no more return. 

Of summers sweeter than all praise, — 

Of hours when earth and heaven seemed 
To meet and touch and interblend. 

And, face to face, we talked with God, 
As friend most dear with dearest friend ? 



60 A SONNET FOR THE DA Y, 

O foolish heart, be not afraid. 

No plaint, but prophecy, is here ; 
The spring shall come, and Life and Love 

Shall crown another golden year. 

Chesterfield, 1879. 



A SONNET FOR THE DAY 

FOR WHICH A WEATHER-PROPHET HAD PREDICTED A TERRIFIC 

STORM. 

STORM of sunshine ! How it plays and beats 
On the chill gardens and the frozen sods ! 
How the blue heaven seems as if the gods 
Of old with nectarous and ambrosial sweets 
Made holiday ! How the very streets, 

Where fashion pours and weary labor plods, 
Seem to laugh out ! What ! Is 't the golden-rod's 
Midsummer splendor that my vision greets? 

Nay, 't is the golden sunshine. There is naught 
That can withstand its, gracious power. 
The winter's reign is broken from this hour. 
And all its terrors are to nothing brought. 
O heart, my heart, greet thou the opening year, 
Sing with the birds and make a sv/eeter cheer ! 

March 9, 1S83. 




BALD-CAP REVISITED. 6\ 




BALD-CAP REVISITED. 

LEVEN years, and two fair months beside, 
Full to the brim with various love and joy, 
My life has known since last I drew apart 
Into this huge sky-shouldering mountain dome, 
And, listening, heard the winds among the pines 
Making a music as of countless choirs. 
Chanting in sweet and solemn unison ; 
And, standing here where God's artificers. 
Angels of frost and fire and sun and storm, 
Have made a floor with nameless gems inlaid, 
Saw, like a roof, the slopes of living green 
Go cleaving down to meet the lower hills, — 
Firm-buttressed walls, their bases over-grown 
With meadow-sweet and ferns and tangled vines. 
And all that makes the road-sides beautiful ; 
While, all around me, other domes arose. 
Girded with towers and eager pinnacles. 
Into the silent and astonished air. 
Full oft, since then, up-looking from below. 
As naught to me has been the pleasantness 
Of meadows broad, and, 'mid them, flowing wide 
The Androscoggin's dark empurpled stream, 



63 BALD-CAP REVISITED. 

Enamoured of thine awful loveliness, 

Thy draperies of forests overspread 

With shadows and with silvery, shining mists, 

Thy dark ravines and cloud-conversing top. 

Where it would almost seem that one might hear 

The talk of angels in the happy blue ; — 

And so, in truth, my heart has heard to-day. 

Dear sacred Mount, not thine alone the charm 
By which thou dost so overmaster me, 
But something in thy lover's beating heart, 
Something of memories vague and fond and sweet, 
Something of what he cannot be again, 
Something of sharp regret for vanished joys, 
And faces that he may no more behold. 
And voices that he listens for in vain, 
And feet whose welcome sound he hears no more. 
And hands whose touch could make his being thrill 
With love's dear rapture of delicious pain, — 
Something of all the years that he has lived, 
Of all the joy and sorrow he has known. 
Since first with eager feet and heart aflame 
He struggled up thy steep and shaggy sides. 
Sun-flecked, leaf-shaded realms of life in death, 
And stood, as now, upon thy topmost crest. 
Trembling with joy and tender unto tears ; — 
Something of all these things mingles with thee, — 
Green of thy leaves and whiteness of thy clouds, 



BALD-CAP REVISITED, 63 

Rush of thy streams and rustle of thy pines, — 

With all thy strength and all thy tenderness, 

Till thou art loved not for thyself alone, 

But for the love of many who are gone, 

And most of all for one who still remains 

I'o make all sights more fair, all sounds more sweet, 

All life more dear and glad and wonderful. 

Eleven years, and thou so little changed ! 
No change but what the changing season brings ; 
For then, in June, thou wast all greenery ; 
Now, in September, thou art turning sere, 
Or hanging many a leafy banner out, 
Blazoned with gold ; and 'mid the sombre rows 
Of priest-like pines, along thy forest aisles. 
Gleams here and there a red-cloaked cardinal \ 
And old decay is covered everywhere 
With the fresh-fallen leaves, making such show 
As never caliph with his floors entiled 
With warmest-hued and shapeliest arabesques. 
Thou hast not changed. As it were yesterday 
I stood upon thy moss-grown parapet, 
Familiar seems each lightning-splintered crag. 
Each slope that shimmers in the sunny wind. 
Each outer court through which with crackling tread 
I pressed into thy presence-chamber vast. 
And dared to sit upon thy sculptured throne. 
Still through the broad and grassy intervale 



64 BALD-CAP REVISITED, 

The river into which thy torrents run 

Flows swiftly on, setting with amethyst 

Full many a little emerald-tinted isle, 

Past many a pebbly, drought-discovered shoal, 

And over many a shallow, rippling ford, 

For ever singing as it hurries by. 

Impatient to be mingled with the sea. 

And still on every side stand reaching up 

Into the blue, illimitable air 

Thy huge, sky-cleaving, cloud-compelling peers, 

Baring their knotted bosoms to the sun. 

Still, as of yore, the shadows troop adown 

Their mighty slopes, or ever deeper grow 

Amid the brawn of every dark ravine. 

Thou art not changed ; the same from year to year 

Are all thy great and dear companions. 

There comes to thee no morn when thou dost miss 

This one or that from his accustomed place, 

And watch in vain for him to come again. 

Would it were so with me ! But, as I gaze 

Abroad upon thy stalwart brotherhood, 

A dimness comes, which is not of the hills, 

Between me and their everlastingness, 

To think that since I hailed thy glory first 

So many of my mates have gone away 

Beyond the misty mountain-tops of death, 

That well-nigh for each peak I count a grave. 

Fades out the valley's peace, the purple glow 



BALD-CAP REVISITED. 65 

That now begins to bathe the distant hills, 

And in their stead I see the faces strong 

And sweet of dear ones whom I shall not meet again 

Until I bid my last farewell to thee. 

Dear, mighty friend, oh deem not that I chide 
Aught thou hast done to make thyself appear 
Spectral and dim, and with thee all thy kin. 
And nothing real but those faces pure 
That in the infinite space of heart and mind 
Press cheek to cheek, so dense the angel-throng ; 
As in the backgrounds Raphael loved to paint 
For Mary and her wonder-gifted child : 
No other service thou couldst render me 
Would seem so tender and so good as this. 
Yet were my heart ungrateful if alone 
Of vanished joys I heard the solemn voice 
Of all thy -sounds and all thy silences 
Soft-speaking, here, as hour succeeds to hour, 
Each than the last more rare and mystical. 
" Though much has gone," thou say'st, "since first I tiied 
Thy youthful strength with rigors all unknown. 
How much remains ! How much is now thine own 
Which then thou hadst no knowledge of or dream ! 
What joy of friends and books, and perfect days 
When earth to heaven seemed nearer than its wont ; 
What sacred hours of high companionship ; 
What deeper love where love was rife before j 



66 BALD-CAP REVISITED. 

What faces and what voices from the void, 
Shaping themselves for thee to bend and kiss, 
Rounding themselves for thee to list and hear ; 
What deeper sense of all the mystery 
In which thou liest embosomed evermore ! " 

Thou sayest this ? Nay, 'tis no voice of thine. 
Not to remember either loss or gain 
Do thy enchantments lure the hearts of men. 
'Tis their device to use thy beetling crags 
For rock-hewn stairs, by which they may ascend 
To secret shrines of memory and prayer. 
'Tis thine to make them lose themselves in thee ; 
Ay, to forget their individual life, 
And feel themselves but parts of that which breathes 
With thy sweet-scented breath of trees that sway 
And rustle in the wind \ of that which creeps 
In every lichen's slow and noiseless tread, 
Or warms thy heart with ardors of the sun. 
Sleep, mind and heart, and let the body wake 
And every sense with speechless rapture thrill. 
Full soon, somehow, God's wondrous alchemy 
The senses' joy shall turn to spirit's praise ^ 
Seeing that soul and sense are not at war, 
But each the other's gentle servitor. 
Drink deep, O sense, and there shall come a day 
When heart and soul shall share thy freshening. 
And for this perfect peace in which I lie, 



BALD-CAP REVISITED. 6/ 

Bathing myself in heaven's upper air, 
Curtained with clouds, with carpets for my feet 
Such as the proudest sultan could not buy 
With all the hoarded wealth of centuries, — 
For this I know, that when — no, not too soon — 
Again I thread the city's crowded ways. 
And mingle with its mighty swarm of men, 
And bend myself to do the tasks I love, 
I shall with stouter heart and firmer mind 
Pursue my way ; sustained by greater hopes ; 
Cheered by a deeper faith in all the world, 
And a more loving trust, my God, in Thee. 

Shelburne, N.H., Sept. 1876. 




68 LOST AND FOUND, 




LOST AND FOUND. 

HERE have they gone, the happy summer days, 
With all their loveliness of earth and sky, 
Which we have seen so gayly passing by. 
Till now the last a moment more delays? 

Whither have fled their mornings cool and sweet ? 

Whither their dreamy haze of highest noon ? 

Whither their sunset glories, and the croon 
Of many waters murmurously fleet ? 

O friends, dear friends, who have been with me here, 
To-night, for all the miles that intervene, 
There is no inch of space our hearts between ; 

Come hark with me a voice of hope and cheer. 

These summer days, that have so sweetly fled. 
Have their Avallon, wherein they abide, 
Like good King Arthur after he had died, 

Or seemed to die, when still he was not dead. 



LOST AND FOUND. 69 

It is a quiet place within the heart, 

Where they live on for many an after day, 
Blessing alike our labor and our play ; 

And nevermore from us do they depart. 

And when we know not why we are so gay, 
And when we laugh, nor know the reason why, 
God sees in us a gleam of summer sky. 

Or hears some brook go laughing on its way. 

And so in you I know God keeps for me 
The sweetness of the unreturning days. 
Safe from all harm and better than all praise : 

Be mine, at least, such immortality. 

September 3, iSSo. 




POEMS OF LIFE AND LOVE. 



POEMS OF LIFE AND LOVE. 




TETE-A-TETE. 



BIT of ground, a smell of earth, 
A pleasant murmur in the trees. 
The chirp of birds, an insect's hum, 
And, kneehng on their chubby knees, 

Two neighbors' children at their play ; 

Who has not seen a hundred such ? 
A head of gold, a head of brown, 

Bending together till they touch. 

II. 

A country school-house by the road, 

A spicy scent of woods anear. 
And all the air with summer sounds 

Laden for who may care to hear. 

So care not two, a boy and girl. 

Who stay when all the rest are gone, 

Solving a problem deeper far 
Than one they seem intent upon. 



74 . TETE-A-TETE. 

Dear hearts, of course they do not know 
How near their heads together lean. 

The bee that wanders through the room 
Has hardly space to go between. 



III. 

Now darker is the head of brown, 
The head of gold is brighter now. 

And lines of deeper thought and life 
Are written upon either brow. 

The sense that thrilled their being through 
With nameless longings vast and dira 

Has found a voice, has found a name, 
And where he goes she follows him. 

Again their heads are bending near, 
And bending down in silent awe 

Above a morsel pure and sweet, 
A miracle of love and law. 

How often shall their heads be bowed 
With joy or grief, with love and pride, 

As waxeth strong that feeble life. 
Or slowly ebbs its falling tide 1 



TETE-A-TETE. . 75 



1875- 



IV, 



A seaward hill where lie the dead 

In dreamless slumber deep and calm ; 

Above their graves the roses bloom, 
And all the air is full of balm. 

They do not smell the roses sweet ; 

They do not see the ships that go 
Along the far horizon's edge ; 

They do not feel the breezes blow. 

Here loving hands have gently laid 
The neighbors' children, girl and boy, 

And man and wife ; head close to head 
They sleep, and know nor pain nor joy. 




^6 THE GATE CALLED BEAUTIFUL, 




THE GATE CALLED BEAUTIFUL. 



"And they brought a man, lame from his birth, and laid him daily at thegata 
of the temple which is called Beautiful." 



AME from his birth ; and who is not as much. 

Though in his body he be stout and strong \ 
And in his mind an athlete for the truth ; 
In conscience, too, a giant against wrong ? 



For who that guesses what a man may be, 
In all his powers and graces how divine, 

And then bethinks him of the thing he is, — 
So far below that glory, God, of thine, — 

Though he were greatest of the sons of men, 
" Why callest thou me good ? " he still would say 

And all the heights already won would point 
To higher peaks along the heavenly way. 

Lame from our birth ; and daily we are brought, 
And at the gate called Beautiful are laid : 

Sometimes its wonder makes us free and glad ; 
Sometimes its grandeur makes us half afraid. 



THE GATE CALLED BEAUTIFUL. 7/ 

The gate called Beautiful ; and yet methinks 
No word can name it that begins to tell 

How soar its pillars to the highest heavens, 
And how their roots take hold on lowest hell. 

With what designs its panels are inwrought, 

O'ertraced with flowers and hills and shining seas, 

And glorified by rise and set of suns, 

And Junes of blossom and October trees ! 

So beautiful, yet never quite the same ! 

The pictures change with every changing hour ; 
Or sweeter things come stealing into view, 

Which stronger things had hidden by their power. 

There all the stars and systems go their way ; 

There shines the moon so tender in her grace ; 
And there, than moon or star or sun more fair, 

The blessed wonder of the human face. 

Faces and faces ! some of children sweet ; 

And some of maidens fresh and pure and true ; 
And some that lovelier are at evening time 

Than any can be while the years are few. 

This is the gate called Beautiful j it swings 
To music sweeter than was heard that day 

When St. Cecilia, rapt in ecstasy. 

Heard through her trance the angelic roundelay. 



78 THE GATE CALLED BEAUTIFUL. 

Music of little children at their play ; 

Of mothers hushing them to sleep and dreams ; 
Of all the birds that sing in all the trees, 

Of all the murmuring of all the streams. 

And at this gate, not at wide intervals, 
Are we, lame from our birth, laid tenderly, 

But daily ; and not one day passes by 
And we look not upon this mystery. 

Gate of the Temple ? surely it is that ! 

It opens not into vacuity ; 
For all its beauty, it is not so fair 

But that a greater beauty there can be. 

Thy beauty, O my Father ! All is Thine ; 

But there is beauty in Thyself, from whence 
The beauty Thou hast made doth ever flow 

In streams of never-failing affluence. 

Thou art the Temple ! and though I am lame, — 
Lame from my birth, and shall be till I die, — 

I enter through the gate called Beautiful, 

And am alone with Thee, O Thou Most High ! 



1872. 



REAL AND WEAL, 79 




REAL AND IDEAL. 

OOKING athwart the valley's cleft, 
Where nestles many a cosey farm 
Beside the stream whose music low 
For ever keeps its ancient charm, 

For one I love, who, young and gay, 
Full often wandered by its side, 

Floating his wayward fancies down 
To the great sea upon its tide, — 

Looking through dreamy, half-shut eyes 
Across to where the shining mist 

Bathed all the woods and uplands dim 
With purple and with amethyst, 

I said, Why do we linger thus 

Where all is sharp and bright and clear ? 
Seek we the pleasant land beyond, 

And taste of its enchantments dear. 



8o REAL AND IDEAL, 

Agreed ; and soon our faithful grays 
Were plunging down the hill-side steep, 

Where over lichen-crinkled walls 

The tangled thickets nod and creep ; 

And past the spring that trickles down 

Through ledges thick with brush and furze, 

Where aspens show their silver pomp 
And chestnuts drop their prickly burrs ; 

And o'er the little rattling bridge 

That spans the pebbly, murmurous stream, 

And on into the land that seemed 
The mystic shadow of a dream 

And what to find ? The smell of hay 

New-mown, and gleam of mowers' scythes, 

And purple milkweed hardly seen 
For troops of golden butterflies ; 

And many a pleasant upland farm. 
And many a sun-browned little maid. 

And patient cattle half asleep 

In many a maple's plenteous shade j 

All this and more ; but here nor there 

One atom of the tender mist 
That, from afar, had clothed the land 

With purple and with amethyst. 



A VINDICATION, 8 1 

But looking backward to the hills 
Which we had left an hour before, 

Behold the charm we came to seek 
Was there ! Down-folded softly o'er 

Each dear familiar place it lay, — 

The violet-tinted mystic haze ; 
And there had lain, hour after hour, 

Through the long, sweet, mid-summer days ; 

While w^e, in all its splendor clad, 

In Tyrian dyes right royally. 
Had deemed that we must seek afar 

Its perfect grace and mystery, 

Chesterfield, Mass., July 19, 1876. 




A VINDICATION. 

HOU art not proud because thou art so 
beautiful. 
'Tis falsely said. Thou art but glad of heart 
To feel thy glorious beauty is a part 
Of all the beauty that is anywhere. 
On land or sea or in the gleaming air : 

Such gladness is less proud than dutiful. 



1876. 



82 THE OVER-SOUL. 




THE OVER-SOUL. 

DLING one day in June, my aimless feet, 
Forbidden, crossed the threshold of that fane 
By grateful Harvard built for her dear slain, 
Whom Freedom counted for her service meet. 



Above me rose the glorious sheaf of towers, 
As on the snowy tablets, slow, I read 
The names of all the generous-hearted dead, 

Who were our chivalry's most perfect flowers. 

There were the names of men whom all the land 
Hailed as the greatest in those dreadful days ; 
There, too, their names whose only meed of praise 

Was the deep sense of doing God's command. 

And one I read, which oft I used to speak 

In loving-wise, as friend doth speak with friend : 
Brave, ardent spirit ! wheresoever tend 

Thy restless feet, thou dost the highest seek. 



THE OVER-SOUL. 83 

And, as I gazed, with dimmer sight I saw 
Upon rude stagings high above my head 
The workmen painting words that shall be read 

Through countless years of Liberty and Law; — 

Resounding words of that melodious tongue 
Which still doth with the pomp of Virgil swell ; 
But nought of all their meaning could they tell, 

Who on the wall their various colors flung. 

And some there were who worked in sombre hues, 
While others bravely did illuminate 
With red and gold some word of greater weight ; 

But all alike the meaning all did lose. 

Behold, I thought, a parable of those 

Whose names are graven on these tablets cold ; 
They did their work, yet little could have told 

Of meanings vast which only Heaven knows. 

Behold, I thought, a parable of all 

Who do men's work upon this mortal strand ; 

Great meanings which they cannot understand, 
They paint and grave on Time's memorial wall. 

There are who work in colors dull and cold ; 

There are who work in characters of flame : 

It matters not, the glory is the same ; 
For only thus the tale is fitly told. 



84 CARPE DIEM. 

Which He can read who builds all seas above 
So strong that nothing can destroy or mar, 
In every sun, in every circling star, 

The everlasting temple of His love. 

Cambridge, 1874. 



CARPE DIEM. 



SOUL of mine, how few and short the years 
Ere thou shalt go the way of all thy kind. 
And here no more thy joy or sorrow find 
At any fount of happiness or tears ! 
Yea, and how soon shall all that thee endears 
To any heart that beats with love for thee 
Be everywhere forgotten utterly. 
With all thy loves and joys, and hopes and fears ! 
But, O my soul, because these things are so, 
Be thou not cheated of to-day's delight. 
When the night cometh, it may well be night ; 
Now it is day. See that no minute's glow 
Of all the shining hours unheeded goes ; 
No fount of rightful joy by thee untasted flows. 



.876. 




*'IVHV THIS WASTE f'' 85 




"WHY THIS WASTE?" 

HAT eyes which pierced our inmost being 
through ; 
That Hps which pressed into a single kiss, 
It seemed, a whole eternity of bliss ; 
That cheeks which mantled with love's rosy hue ; 
That feet which wanted nothing else to do 
But run upon love's errands, this and this ; 
That hands so fair they had not seemed amiss 
Reached down by angels through the deeps of blue; — 
That all of these so deep in earth should lie 
While season after season passeth by ; 

That things which are so sacred and so sweet 
The hungry roots of tree and plant should eat 1 
Oh for one hour to see as Thou dost see, 
My God, how great the recompense must be 1 



1874. 



86 THE GREATEST WO^VER 




THE GREATEST WONDER 

O pleasantly the fleeting days go by, 

So much they bring of bliss without alloy, 
So much to give my thought and will employ 
Whether upon the fragrant turf I lie, 
With face upturned and watch some argosy 
Of white-sailed clouds, freighted with summer joy, 
Or track the fancies that, on wings more coy 
Than shyest bird's, explore a deeper sky. 
Or converse hold with whom I love the best, — 

The greatest wonder th'at my spirit knows 
Is — that with so much gone I am so bless'd ? 

Ah, no ! But from this thought it ever flows : 
How could my heart contain its vast delight, 
If my lost saints were with me here to-night ? 

1875- 



FROM THE INVISIBLE. 87 




FROM THE INVISIBLE. 

ETHOUGHT I walked along a pleasant way, 
Sunlight and shadow flecking leaf and sod, 
And, hand in my hand, one beside me trod. 
Her fair face adding brightness to the day. 
Sudden we came upon a hidden door, 

And she that walked beside me passed within, 
Nor did return. But, where she late had been, 
There came a Voice that clamored, " Nevermore ! 
That Voice I knew ; but straightway, seemingly. 
From the shut door a gentle Echo rung. 
And " Evermore ! " still " Evermore ! " it sung, 
And ever softer and more dreamingly. 
God of the living ! from within the door — 
No echo — came that blest word, "Evermore" ? 

1SS4. 



88 ROWENA DARLING. 




ROWENA DARLING. 

HEAP of mortar, brick, and stone, 

O'ergrown with shrubs, o'errun with vines 
That here was once a house and home. 
How ill the careless sense divines, 
Rowena Darling ! 

Not careless his, my friend's, who loves 

To wander in the ancient ways. 
To talk of olden times, and — yes — 

To celebrate your simple praise, 

Rowena Darling. 

Here, once upon a time, he tells. 
There lived a girl unknown to fame : 

The country-side no sweeter knew, — 
It could not know a sweeter name, — 

Rowena Darling ! 

Here, where the birches' silver gleam 

Shines where the hearth-fire used to blaze, 

The hearthstone still you can descry, 
As smooth as in your loveliest days, 

Rowena Darling. 



ROW EN A DARLING. 89 

Here whisks about the squirrel brown, 
Here thrush or robin comes and sings j 

But, standing here, I can but think 
Of other days and sweeter things, 

Rowena DarHng. 

Here baked the apples in a row ; 

Here cracked the chestnuts ripe and sweet ; 
Here — ah, I seem to see them now ! — 

You warmed your pretty buskined feet, 

Rowena Darling. 

And here, when burned the embers low. 

And old folks long had been asleep, 
Your heart stood still to hear a voice 

That whispered — oh, how warm and deep ! — 

Rowena — Darling ! 

Alas, how many years have fled 

Since hearth and heart were warm and bright. 
And all the room and all the world 

Glowed with your love's supreme delight, 
Rowena Darling ! 

This rose-bush growing by the door 

Perhaps you planted, long ago ; 
I pluck and kiss for your dear sake 

Its fairest, be it so or no, 

Rowena Darling. 
Chesterfield, 1883. 



90 UNCONSCIOUSNESS. 




UNCONSCIOUSNESS. 

*' Why callest thou me good? There is none good but God." 

READ that, when Beethoven was grown old, 
The mighty ravishment of that great power, 
Which holds us willing captives to this hour, 
Still like a torrent from his bosom rolled, 
But on his outward sense it took no hold ; 
Deaf were his ears to all that perfect dower 
That gushed from him, as fragrance from a flowei, 
In tenderest joy a million hearts to fold. 

I read of One from out whose heart there came 
The music of a life at one with God ; 

Which makes the ages echo with His fame, 
And " Holy Land " the land which erst He trod : 

And still, though tender, He with words of blame 
Encountered one who dared to call Him good. 



187 1. 



SUB-CONSCIOUSNESS. 9> 




SUB-CONSCIOUSNESS. 

** Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you." 

ET when the mightiest of music's lords, — 
Master-magician of that finer speech 
Which tells of things that words can never 
reach, 
And room for soul as well as sense affords,-— 
When he could hear no more the thrilling chords, 
He was not deaf as is the lonely beach 
To its own music : there was still a breach 
Through which he heard the inarticulate words. 

And He that said, " Why callest thou me good ? " 
Nor heard the music that his life outpoured, — 
He was not stranger to a peace which flowed 
From those calm heights whereto his spirit soared. 

The praise of men might bravely be withstood, 
But not the Love he silently adored. 



1S71. 



92 THE STORY OF MEDARDUS. 




THE STORY OF MEDARDUS. 



EDARDUS walked his studio-cell, 
And sights of Heaven and shapes of Hell 

Passed by him in a dream ; 
For he a picture fain would paint 
Of Mary or some blessed saint, 
In altar-niche to gleam. 



And there in vision Mary came. 
Her face as bright as purest flame, 

Her form of matchless grace ; 
And dark beneath her feet he sees — 
A sight to make the vitals freeze — 

The Adversary's face. 

" This shall my picture be," he said, 
And seized his brush and straight essayed 

To make the vision good ; 
Nor cared for food, nor cared for rest. 
But day and night, like one possessed, 

Before his canvas stood. 



THE STORY OF MEDARDUS. 93 

The Virgin lent her kindly aid, 

And soon the sacred dream was stayed, 

And on the canvas glowed ; 
The Virgin fair as fair could be, 
But Satan not more hideously 

Glowers in his own abode. 

But as one day Medardus stood 
In happy and exultant mood 

Before his picture done, 
He felt a chilling presence near, 
And knew by something dark and drear 

That he was not alone. 

The Adversary spoke — 'twas he — 
And promised gifts most lavishly. 

If but Medardus would 
Take something from the Virgin's grace 
Or make his own accursed face 

With less of hell imbued. 

But no : Medardus seized his brush, 
And gave the Virgin's face a flush 

Of meaning more divine ; 
While on the Adversary's face 
He left a more terrific trace, 

A more infernal sign. 



94 THE STORY OF MEDARDUS. 

Again the Tempter came to him, 

But now with threatenings harsh and grim 

Of evil things to come ; 
But still Medardus would not yield, 
And still her face with splendor filled 

The dark and narrow room. 

At last a day had come when all 
The people made high festival ; 

And, best of all the glee, 
I'he picture by Medardus made 
Would in the great square be displayed, 

That all might come and see. 

And there it was ; and while the crowd 
Surged up, with acclamations loud, 

To view the w^ondrous thing, 
Medardus close beside it stood. 
And praised the Virgin that he could 

Make her such offering. 

But sudden there was heard a cry, 
And then down-swooping from on high 

The Adversaiy sped : 
Medardus seized, and high in air 
Bore him ; then on the pavement there 

He dashed him, bleeding — dead. 



THE STORY OF MEDARDUS, 95 

But see ! The Virgin seems to move 
Ker pictured arms ; her face with love 

Unspeakable is sweet : 
She reaches from the picture forth, 
And lifts Medardus from the earth 

And sets him on his feet. 

Again he lives ! Again he sees 

The crowd, now hushed upon their knees, 

And hears the Virgin say : 
" As thou wast ever true to me. 
To-day I have been true to thee, 

And will be true alway." 

O Heavenly Father, grant that we 
May from this tale of mystery 

This simple lesson gain : 
That, if Thy visions we obey, 
Whatever comes to curse or slay. 

It will but come in vain. 



1870. 




9^ A TIMELY QUESTION. 




A TIMELY QUESTION. 

F good men were only better, 
Would the wicked be so bad ? 
Here's a story with an answer 

To that question strange and sad. 



Herod, famed among the wicked, 
Called the Great with doubtful right, 

When a boy of twenty summers 
With banditti made a fight. 

Hezekiah, their fierce captain, 
Captured he and put to death ; 

Many a follower then compelled he 
To resign his evil breath. 

It was well done : who but thinks so ? 

Thought not so the Sanhedrin. 
Herod was an Idumean ; 

So his deed became a sin. 



A TIMELY QUESTION. 97 

Let him kill his own banditti ; 

Never dare to deal with theirs. 
So they summoned him to meet them 

And to settle his affairs. 

Scarcely sooner said than done 'twas ; 

Herod came ; they wished him back ; 
For he came all clad in armor, 

With his henchmen at his back. 

Cowered the Sanhedrin before him ; 

Dared not say a single word ; 
Only Sameas withstood him 

With a brave, " Thus saith the Lord. 

Herod listened while the Rabbi 

Execrated all his crimes ; 
Then he vanished. Summers flitted; 

Fell the land on evil times j 

Antony and Caesar ploughed it 

With the iron share of war ; 
Tore it with their cruel factions, 

Left it many a dreadful scar ; 

Till, at length, from Rome came Herod, 

Sent by Caesar to be king ; 
At the gates his legions thundered, 

Famine gnawed them from within. 



9^ A 2IMELY QUESTION, 

Many months in vain he battered, 
But, at last, surrender came ; 

Then a deed that earned for Herod 
Centuries of hateful fame. 

Smce the Sanhedrin had counselled 
Firm resistance to his will, 

" Let them perish," he commanded, 
" Let their blood the gutters fill." 

Only one he granted mercy, — 

Sameas ; the very man 
Who had years before withstood him. 

Guess the reason if you can. 

I have guessed it in the question 
Which I venture, strange and sad : 

If the good were only better. 
Would the wicked be so bad ? 

18/2 




NOT YET. 99 




NOT YET. 

N days long, long ago, when a divine unrest 
Was surging like a sea in Europe's mighty 
breast, 



And the fierce Hermit's voice proclaimed the dear 

Lord's will. 
And drove the nations forth to strike and strive and kill, 

If haply they might win from Saracenic horde 
The tomb and precious dust of their most precious 
Lord, — 

As the Crusadei s marched upon their weary way, 
Never was seen, I trow, a mother disarray ; 

Baron and serf, and dames all beautiful and bright, 
And women who had strayed far out into the night; 

And little children too, on mothers' aching breasts. 
That heaved with many a sigh for their deserted nests ; 



lOO NOT YET. 

And as they toiled along, and came from place to place, 
Now to some little town or hamlet void of grace, 

The little children asked of those that carried them 
In ever sadder tones, " Is this Jerusalem ? " 

And ever and again, with more and more regret, 
Heard the disheartening words, " Not yet, my child, 
not yet." 

" Not yet, my child, not yet," I hear the Father say 
To the Crusader true, of this our land and day; 

" For many a weary league thy feet have yet to tread 
Ere through the City's gates thou art in triumph led. 

" Thou dost not know how high its gleaming spires 

arise, 
If with these village roofs thou canst content thine eyes 

" Thou dost not guess how wide is every shining street^ 
If here thou think'st to find fit passage for thy feet. 



" Thou hast not dreamed a dream of men supremely 

strong. 
Of women sweeter far than poet's sweetest song, 



" If with these rustic boors thou canst be pleased to 

dwell, 
And with these damsels rude believe that all is well. 



NOT YET. lOr 

" Rest in no triumph won : the best is yet to be, 
Not yet from half its woe is the great world set free. 

" The victory of to-day, that seems so passing bright, 
Is but a hamlet rude where thou shalt rest to-night. 

" To-morrow up and on ; but not with hope to see, 
Ere night shall come again, the City rise on thee. 

" Far off, far off it lies, 'neath the horizon's rim : 
Enough for thee to know, I see Jerusalem ! 

" Thou hast done well thy part, if thou hast done thy 

best : 
As sure as I am God, I answer for the rest." 



1867. 




102 



UNRECOGNIZED. 



UNRECOGNIZED. 




HEN we have gone within the veil that hides 
From mortal ken the lost of other days, 
Amid the pure transparence of those rays 
Wherein, unseen, the Light of Life abides, 
Shall we indeed from out the luminous tides 
Of spirits surging through those mystic ways 
Full surely know — oh, joy beyond all praise ! — 
Each waiting friend ? So heart to heart confides 
Its secret pain. But one of clearest sight 

So questioned, answered : While we still are here 
Earth-pent, how often do we recognize, 
For what they are, the spirits pure and bright 
Close at our sides ? How not for heaven fear, 
When mortal vapors wrap in such disguise ! 



1888. 



THE HARDEST LOT. 



103 



THE HARDEST LOT. 




O look upon the face of a dead friend 

Is hard ; but 't is not more than we can bear 
If, haply, we can see peace written there, — 
Peace after pain, and welcome so the end, 
Whate'er the past, whatever death may send. 
Yea, and that face a gracious smile may wear, 
If love till death was perfect, sweet, and fair. 
But there is woe from which may God defend : 
To look upon our friendship lying dead, 

While we live on, and eat, and drink, and sleep — 
Mere bodies from which all the soul has fled — 
And that dead thing year after year to keep 

Locked in cold silence on its dreamless bed : — 
There must be hell while there is such a deep. 

1S87. 



104 THE RISE OF MAN. 




THE RISE OF MAN. 

HOU for whose birth the whole creation yearned 
Through countless ages of the morning world, 
Who, first in fiery vapors dimly hurled, 
Next to the senseless crystal slowly turned, 

Then to the plant which grew to something more, — 
Humblest of creatures that draw breath of life, — 
Wherefrom through infinites of patient pain 

Came conscious man to reason and adore : 
Shall we be shamed because such things have been, 
Or bate one jot of our ancestral pride ? 
Nay, in thyself art thou not deified 
That from such depths thou couldst such summits win? 
While the long way behind is prophecy 
Of those perfections which are yet to be. 

18S3. 



THE INEFFABLE NAME. 105 




THE INEFFABLE NAME. 

SEE an angel with dilated eyes 
Filled with a wonder sweet beyond compare, 
Around whose brows her wind-blown golden 
hair 
Makes aureole splendor, and her finger lies 
Upon her hps. Dear angel of surprise. 
The symbol thou of spirits high and fair, 
Who to be silent still serenely dare, 
Before all wonders of the earth and skies. 
How name aright the Power that surges through 
All times and worlds, nature and humankind ? 
O Light of light, such spirits are not blind 
To thy perfections, old yet ever new ! 

When speech but mocks the overburdened heart, 
They, choosing silence, choose the better part. 

April 12, 1883. 



I06 STARLIGHT. 




STARLIGHT. 

OOK up," she said ; and all the heavens blazed 
With countless myriads of quiet stars, 
Whereon a moment silently he gazed, 
And drank that peace no trouble ever mars. 
Then looking down into her face upturned, 
Two other stars that did outshine the rest 
Upward to him with such soft splendor yearned 

That all her secret was at once confessed. 
Then he with kisses did put out their hght. 

And said, " O strange, but more dear love to me 
Are thy pure eyes than all the stars of night 

That shine in heaven everlastingly ! 
Night still is night, with every star aglow ; 
But Hght were night didst thou not love me so." 

1878. 



A NTI- DISCO URA CEMENT. 1 07 




ANTI-DISCOURAGEMENT. 

HE legend runs, that on his toilsome way 

To reach the Buddha's crown of sacred joy, 
Gautama lived a hundred various hves, 
Deeming no task too mean for his employ, 



So might he come at length to that high seat 
Which is the topmost sovereignty of good, 

And for a thousand ages bless the world 
With the hell-deep salvation of the Buddh. 

Of Buddhas there had been before his day 
Twoscore and five ; and when the first of all 

Was on this earth, it chanced he came anear 
A hermit's cell, Guatama's, who did fall 

Prone on his face, and of his body made 
A living bridge, whereby the teacher crossed 

A rushing stream ; and for this service he 
Had gained, instead of that poor life he lost, 



1 08 A NTI-DISCO URA GEMENT. 

At once the Buddha's own ; but " No," he said, 
" I still will go the round of life and death 

Some ages more, if so I may at length 

Redeem all creatures that draw painful breath." 

And of the many forms in which abode 
The spirit which is now the Lord of all, 

One was a small red squirrel, and full oft 
Lower than this, for love's sake, did he fall. 

And lo ! there came a dreadful storm, which tore 
Gautama's squirrel-nest from off its tree, 

And bore it, with its freight of helpless life. 
Far out upon a black and raging sea. 

How save his young ? Audacity of love ! 

Quoth he, " At length this pretty brush of mine 
Shall serve me well, for with it I will dry 

This deep sea up of all its weltering brine." 

And so with valiant heart he went to work 

To save his brood ; and seven days he wrought, 

Sprinkling the sea on the unconscious land. 
Nor would believe that it was all for naught. 

Then Sekra, ruler of the heavens, saw 

What he was at, and laughed right merrily 

To think a squirrel, with his tail, should deem 
That he could dry the unfathomable sea. 



ANTI-DISCOURA GEM E NT. 1 09 

" Ho, there ! " he cried, " a hundred thousand men 
Could not accompHsh what thou dost essay 

If they should toil a hundred thousand years, 
And all the hours were years of every day." 

" Thou speakest true," the squirrel-saint replied ; 

" So would it be if all were like to thee : 
But mind, old imbecile, thine own affairs — 

/shall go on till I have dried the sea." 

So with new ardor he frisked up and down 

The wild sea's edge, hearing his young ones cry. 

Till Sekra ceased to laugh, and, looking down 
With wondering pity from the inclement sky, 

That such vast courage could have found a home 
In such a feeble creature's tiny breast. 

Soothed all his winds to sleep, and o'er the deep 
Spread suddenly a sweet and perfect rest. 

Save where one kindly zephyr gently pressed 
Landward the leafy squirrel-laden bough, 

Till there was laughter in the heart which then 
Was a red squirrel's, but is Buddha's now. 

O mighty power of love ! O heart that dares 
All things for its beloved ! To you alone 

All things are possible ; the heavens bend, 

And powers that scoffed will help you to your own ! 
iSSo. 



no JAN S TEENER'S RIDE, 




JAN STEENER'S RIDE. 

i| STORY is it, you want, little man? 

Well, come and sit on your grandfather's knee, 
And I '11 do the best that ever I can — 
It 's one my grandfather told to me. 



I 'm somethin' more than eighty ; well, 

He was almost ninety, and hale and bright, 

And I was sitting, as you are now. 
Snug in his arms one winter night. 

Said he : " When I was a smart young man — 
Before the Dutch had the country lost — 

There stood a church on the village green, 
Right in the middle where two roads crossed. 

" It stood as flush with the village street 

As the top o' your head with the palm o' my hand, 

So ; and running from east to west. 
Open each end to the pleasant land. 



JAN STEENER'S RIDE. Ill 

" Spread out like a picture, the broad aisle ran, 
With the dominie's pulpit a bit one side 

Of the upper end ; and there he stood. 
Sounding his trumpet far and wide, 

"One Sabbath morning, as pretty a day 

As ever the Lord God chose to make ; 
And what do you think was the Bible text 

The dear old dominie chanced to take 

" That morning, but one from the 'Pocalypse 

'Bout the great white horse and his rider, Death? 

He was just beginning on ^ ninthly,' and 

The people were most of 'em holding their breath, 

" When all at once, in at the open door, 
And up the aisle with a thunderous sound, 

Riding as white a horse as a man 
Could find in all the country round, 

" There came a horseman galloping fast — 
A single flash — he had come and gone, 

Leaving a hundred Dutch-folk there 

With their hearts in their breasts like an icy stone. 

" And the dominie he was scared the worst 

Of 'em all ; he trembled and shivered and shook. 

And gripped the pulpit as if he thought 
The dreadful day of the Holy Book 



112 JAN STEENER'S RIDE. 

" Had come for sure ; and at last he said : 
' What we have seen I dare not say : 

But if it be a sign of the end, 

There is need for us all to watch and pray.' 

" So with prayer and blessing the frightened folk 
Were all to their various homes dismissed ; 

But one old burgher said, and swore, 

As he shook Hke a hammer his grimy fist, 

*' He 'd bet a thousand thalers to one 

That the man who rode and the clattering steed 
Were just a younker of flesh and blood 

And a handsome horse of the Flemish breed. 

"And, in truth, he wasn't much out, my lad ! 

I ought to know, for the horse was mine, 
And I was the younker that struck aghast 

The dominie preaching his number nine. 

" Don't look so solemn ! You see, that day 
I was bound to see the prettiest girl 

That ever looked in a looking-glass 

To conquer a wilful and wandering curl. 

*' And the shortest way to her side was through 
The meeting-house aisle ; so tlirough I went. 

A minute's difference, more or less ; 

But life at the longest will soon be spent, 



JAN STEENER 'S RIDE. \ \ 3 

" And the love of a girl who is sweet and true 
Is a thing so precious beneath the sun 

That one of its minutes is worth an a^e 
Of hearts that never such bliss have won." 

This is the story my grandfather told 
To yours ; it was fourscore years ago. 

That is my grandmother's picture there ; 
Do you wonder much that he loved her so ? 



1875. 




114 THE HARBOR-LIGHTS, 




THE HARBOR-LIGHTS. 

UST at the harbors liiouth she stood ; 
Behind her was the beacon white, 
Which sends its kindly warning forth 
From evening shade till morning light 



Above her was the golden sun ; 

More golden shone her tossing hair ; 
The ocean's azure, at her feet. 

With her blue eyes could not compare. 

Full sheer the cliff whereon she stood, 

And, though her eyes were downward cast, 

I still could row my boat anear 
And see their glory as I passed. 

Patiently there she watched her line, 
That sank among the golden weed. 

" Who would not be a fish," thought I, 

" By such sweet hands if doomed to bleed ? '' 



THE HARBOR-LIGHTS, 115 

Sweet hands, but browner than the rock 

Whereon her pretty feet had place ; 
Which, browner yet, laid hold of it 

With naked purity and grace. 

One day I dared to speak to her : 

" What have you caught to-day, my dear ? " 

" Nothing but just a thought or two ; 

More thoughts than fish come swimming here." 

" And have you caught this thought, my dear, 
That I love you and you love me ? " 

I dared not speak the question out ; 
Such joy as that might never be. 

So every day I pass her by, 

But cannot bring my lips to say : 
" My heart is caught upon your hook, 

And cannot tear itself away." 

Why should I speak ? She would not slip 

From off the rocks into my boat, 
And say, " As thus for evermore 

Let us together sit and float." 



'&^ 



She would not love, — 'tis not her time ; 

But naught that she can do or say 
Can rob me of my right divine 

To love and worship her alway. 



Il6 A WEDDING SONG. 

O maiden at the harbor's mouth ! 

By day, with their distracting light, 
Your eyes will wreck more venturous hearts 

Than ever beacon saved by night. 



1872. 



A WEDDING-SONG. 




SAID : " My heart, now let us sing a song 
For a fair lady on her wedding-day ; 
Some solemn hymn or pretty roundelay, 
That shall be with her as she goes along 
To meet her joy, and for her happy feet 
Shall make a pleasant music, low and sweet." 

Then said my heart : '^ It is right bold of thee 
To think that any song that we could sing 
Would for this lady be an offering 

Meet for such gladness as hers needs must be. 
What time she goes to don her bridal ring, 
And her own heart makes sweetest carolling." 

And so it is that with my lute unstrung. 
Lady, I come to greet thy wedding-day ; 
But once, methinks, I heard a poet say 

The sweetest songs remain for aye unsung. 
So mine, unsung, at thy dear feet I lay. 
And with a " Peace be with thee ! " go my way. 

October 8, 1S79. 



FATE, iiy 




FATE. 

LL unconscious I beheld her ; 

Knew not that my fate was nigh, 
Fate that wears such various aspect 
To the victim's laughing eye. 



Poets, painters, still to paint her 
Dark and gloomy, do their best ; 

Were I painter, I would paint her 
All in cherry-color dressed. 

She should be a litde maiden, 

Modest, shrinking, sweet, and fair. 

At a party, playing forfeits, 

Looking, " Kiss me if you dare ! " 

Did I kiss you ? If I did n't, 
'T was the blunder of my life. 

Was the last the hundred millionth? 
Just one more then, little wife. 



January 3, iSSo. 



COMING AND GOING. 



COMING AND GOING. 




THE OLDEST STORY. 

NDER the coverlet's snowy fold 

The tiniest stir that ever was seen, 
And the tiniest sound, as if fairy folk 
Were cuddling under a leaf, I ween. 



That is the baby : he came to town 

Only a day or two ago ; 
But he looks as wise as if he knew 

All that a baby can ever know. 

There he lies in a little heap, 

As soft as velvet, as warm as toast, 

As rosy-red as the haiTest moon 

Which I saw so big on the hazy coast. 

Hear him gurgle and sputter and sigh, 
As if his dear little heart would break, 

And scold away as if all the world 

Were only meant for his littleness' sake. 



122 THE OLDEST STORY. 

Blink, little eyes, at the strange new light ; 

Hark, little ears, at the strange new sound : 
Wonderful things shall you see and hear 

As the days and the months and the years go round. 

Hardly you seem a Life at all ; 

Only a Something with hands and feet, 
Only a Feeling that things are warm, 

Only a Longing for something to eat. 

Have you a thought in your downy head ? 

Can you say to yourself so much as " I " ? 
Have you found out yet that you are yourself? 

Or has God what you will be by and by ? 

It 's only a little that we can guess, 

But it 's quite as much as we care to know ; 

The rest will come with the fleeting years, 
Little by little, — and better so. 

Enough for the day is the good thereof : 
The speck of a thing that is lying there. 

And the presence that fills the silent house 
With the tender hush of a voiceless prayer. 

October 29, 1877. 



IN AN UNKNO WN TONG UE. 1 2 3 




IN AN UNKNOWN TONGUE. 



KNOW full well what saith Saint Paul ; 

For unknown tongues he did not care ; 
It was as much as he could do 
To speak them good and fair. 



Give him the known and understood ; 

P'ive words of this he counted more 
Than thousands ten of all the rest 

That men could babble o'er. 

But then he did n't, as he might, 
Like Peter, take a wife about, 

To tend his thorn, and soothe his heart, 
With combat wearied out. 

And so he had no tiny Paul, 

No nonsense-prating, wee Pauline, 

To make him half forget the strife 
His Jew and Greek between. 



124 IN AN UNKNOWN TONGUE. 

I cannot glory, as could he, 
In perils both by sea and land ; 

Of visions I have had a few, — 
Some hard to understand. 

But I can glory in a Boy, 

As dear as ever poet sung ; 
And all his speech, from morn till eve, 

Is in an unknown tongue. 

Strange, bubbling, rippling, gurgling sounds 
His pouting lips still overflow ; 

But what the meaning of them is, 
The wisest do not know. 

Friends have I, learned in the Greek, 
In Latin, Hebrew, Spanish, Dutch, 

In French and German ; and a few 
Of Sanscrit know — not much. 

They come and hear the Baby's speech, 
As blithe as any song of bird \ 

They wonder much, but go away. 
Nor understand a word. 

It minds me now of mountain rills. 
And now of zigzag droning bees. 

And now of sounds the summer makes 
Among the leafy trees. 



IN AN UNKNOWN TONGUE. I25 

And yet, if I should say the truth, 

Five words of his to me are more 
Than of the words I understand 

Five hundred times a score. 

For whatsoever they may mean 

To him, or to my learned friends, 
One meaning, of all meanings best. 

He still to me commends : 

That life is sweet for him and me, 

Though half its meaning be not guessed ; 

That God is good, and I a child 
Upon his loving breast. 




126 TO JACOB ABBOTT, 




TO JACOB ABBOTT. 

EAR charmer of a thousand happy hours, 
My earliest guide into those blessed ways 
Wherein I have delighted all my days, 
Sweeter to me than laggard August showers 
To thirsty fields, it was, to hear thee tell 
Of happy Rollo, and of Jonas wise. 
And Lucy with her meek inquiring eyes, 
And all that happed to dearest Mary Bell. 
Now thou art gone, so long the children's friend ! 
But, as I muse, I seem at heaven's door 
To hear a sound which there I heard before, 
When Danish Hans that way did softly wend, — 
A sound of children making merriest din 
Of welcome as the old man enters in. 

Brooklyn, i88i. 



A TRUE STORY. 



127 



A TRUE STORY. 



*' Greater love hath no man than this '* 




ROM a home that had two darlings 

One was called and went away, — 
Baby Ralph ; and little Willie 
Missed him sorely at his play. 



As one day he talked about him, 

Wondering much where he had gone, 

Wishing much he would not tarry. 
Brother Willie was so lone, — 

Said the mother, so beguiling 
Something of her secret pain, 

" What would Willie give if only 
Baby Ralph could come again ? " 



^^73 



Drooped the little head in silence, 
Thinking hard, 'twas plain to see ; 

Then he spoke out strong and tender, 
" Mamma I would give God me" 



128 WHAT WOULD THEY SAY? 




WHAT WOULD THEY SAY? 

F they could find a voice, these little ones, 
That freeze by night and hunger all the day, 
If they could find a voice and speak to you, 
What think you, men and women, would 
they say ? 

They would say, If God had told them, up in heaven, 
Of the welcome that awaited them on earth. 

And had let them choose to stay with Him for ever, 
Or to taste the awful mystery of birth ; 

Though it would have been most bitter not to listen 
To the prayers of women waiting for their birth. 

They would have stayed for ever up in heaven, 
And would never have descended to the earth. 

But they came, (oh, little feet !) not knowing whither, — 
Did not dream but that the earth would serve them 
well ; 

Did not dream that they were wandering out of heaven 
To encounter all the miseries of hell. 



WHAT WOULD THEY SAVf 1 29 

" But now that we are with you, men and women," 
They would say, if they could only find the word, 

** We pray you do not turn to bitter crying 
What should be the sweetest music ever heard. 

" For the fathers and the mothers that God gave us 
Did for us the very best that they could do, 

But they perished with their over-work and sorrow, 
And we turn from their dead faces unto you. 

" Will you help us to be innocent and happy ? 

Will you help us to be womanly and pure ? 
Will you save us from the terrible temptations 

That for ever lie in waiting for the poor ? 

" Will you snatch us from the dreadful tooth of famme, 
From the sharper tcoth of ignorance and sin ? 

Will you lead us from this fearful outer darkness 
To the light which evermore doth shine within ? 

" If you will, O men and women, we will bless you ; 

And the children that God lets you call your own 
Shall reward you, with their sweetest baby murmurs, 

For not leaving us to perish all alone." 

If they could find a voice, these little ones, 

That freeze by night and hunger all the day, — 

It they could find a voice and speak to you, 
Men and women, it is this that they would say, 

iS6v 



I30 THE FATHER'S JOY, 




THE FATHER'S JOY. 

S closely to my heart this morn 

I held the little child 
That lately came to me from God, 
So sweet and undefiled, — 



Bending above her litttle face 
As though it were a book, 

In which to know that God is good 
I needed but to look, — 

Up to my eyes she turned her own 

In such a wondrous way, 
That I shall be a happier man 

Henceforward from this day. 

For not more plainly, if in words 
She could her meaning tell, 

Could she declare her message sweet, 
" Father, I know you well ! " 



THE MOTHER'S JOY. I3I 

O recognition more divine 

Than lovers' looks of love, 
When first they know the will of God 

And all His goodness prove ! 

O recognition more divine 

Than words of mine can say ! 
What have I done, O God, that Thou 

Shouldst bless me so alway? 

Into the face of death, to-day, 

I could have looked and smiled, 
And said, " Come take me, for I 've had 

A message from my child." 



January, 1S68. 




THE MOTHER'S JOY. 

ITTLE, I ween, did Mary guess. 
As on her arm her baby lay. 
What tides of joy would swell and beat. 
Through ages long, on Christmas day. 



And what if she had known it all, — 
The awful splendor of his fame ? 

The inmost heart of all her joy 

Would still, methinks, have been the same 



132 THE MOTHER'S JOY, 

The joy that every mother knows 

Who feels her babe against her breast : 

The voyage long is overpast, 

And now is calm and peace and rest. 

*' Art thou the Christ? " The wonder came 
As easy as her infant's breath : 

But answer none. Enough for her, 
That love had triumphed over death. 

Christmas, 1883. 




''WATER AND THE SPIRIT:' 13, 




"WATER AND THE SPIRIT." 

Written for the baptism of a little child. 



HEN summer clouds distil 

The sweetness of the rain, 
What various work it finds to do 
Ere it goes back again ! 



It feeds the mountain rills 
As they go hurrying down ; 

It cools the pavements, hot as flame, 
In the deserted town. 

It tinkles day and night 

In fountains silver clear, 
Tempting the little birds to come 

And make their toilet near. 

About the roots of flowers 
And the great roots of trees, 

It lingereth as tenderly 
As saint upon his knees. 



134 ''WATER AND THE SPIRITS 

And many a thirsty soul 
Its limpid sweetness quaffs, 

And when the farmer smells the rain 
How merrily he laughs ! 

O rain that comes from Heaven ! 

The life that comes from God, 
Ere it returns, more paths than thine 

Shall wonderingly have trod. 

On mountain and on plain 

This has a work to do, 
A joy to get, a joy to give, 

That cannot be for you. 

This shall have rills to feed. 
And cool the heated ways ; 

This too shall bubble, fountainwise, 
For many pleasant days. 

And this where all is dark. 
As it were underground. 

Shall nurse the hidden roots of power 
With never voice or sound. 

And this for those who thirst, 
All tired and sore of feet. 

Must be the cup of water cold 
For His disciple meet. 



BAPTISMAL. 135 

O child, so fresh from heaven, 
What omens sweet and grand 

Run up to kiss thy tiny feet 
Like waves upon the sand ! 

Wave-omens, kiss and kiss ; 

Our hearts accept you all, 
And dare believe more blessings wait 

Than we have words to call. 

Brooklyn, 1873. 



136 CATCHING SUNSHINE. 




CATCHING SUNSHINE. 



Y next door neighbor's little girl, 
A cunning two-year-old, 
^' Wondered one day why drooped her flowers. 
And pleaded to be told. 



Then said her mother, " Here in-doors 
The sunshine doesn't come 

To warm and bless and gladden them, 
And make them feel at home." 

Next morning when she went to seek 

Her darling at her play, 
She found her standing in the sun 

In just the queerest way ; 

For there she held aloft a cup 

Above her pretty head. 
"What are you doing, Lolo dear?" 

Mamma, astonished, said. 



CATCHING SUNSHINE. 137 

And she, her cup still held aloft, — 
Bless her, ye Heavenly Powers ! — • 

" I'm catching sunshine, mother dear, 
To give my 'ittle fowers." 

Type of all children there was she, 

Who in life's garden stand, 
Still holding tenderly aloft 

Their life-cup in their hand. 

We, buried in our sordid cares. 

Are plants that droop and die ; 
They catch God's sunshine as it flows 

For ever from on high. 

Upon our weary, aching hearts 

They let its blessing fall ; 
Their office this in every land, 

In cottage, hut, and hall. 

And so the world is kept alive. 

And freshened every minute, 
By the dear grace that overflows 

The children who are in it. 



1869. 



138 GIFTS IN SLEEP 




GIFTS IN SLEEP. 

UR sweet boy-baby had a gift, 

A home-made rabbit, soft and white 
By day, by night, awake, asleep, 
It evermore was his dehght. 



Beauty and use could not agree, 

It lost its whiteness more and more ; 

It lost its tail, it lost its ears : 
He loved it better than before. 

And still the grimy little heap 

He tucked beneath his dainty chin ; 

And still to bed without his pet 
Was sure to brew a dreadful din. 

Nightly we found his rosy cheek 

Against his battered darling pressed. 

A vote was passed : when Christmas came, 
He should of it be dispossessed. 



GIFTS IN SLEEP. 1 39 

And in its place, at dead of night, 

Another should be slyly placed, 
With coat of down as snowy white 

As a wee rabbit ever graced. 

The deed was done. Not without tears 

We took the dear old pet away, 
And wrapped it up and marked it plain. 

To keep against some distant day, 

When, haply, to some boy of his 

He might the frowzy relic show. 
For proof that he was true in love 

Some five-and-twenty years ago. 

Where lay the old we laid the new, 
And waited for the Christmas morn, 

As wait a hundred million hearts 

For the dear time when Christ was born. 

It came at length, and baby woke. 

To clutch his precious liebling idiSt ; — 

It was the same, yet not the same ! 
Its squalor with the night had passed 1 

He looked at first with dubious face, 
But soon resolved that all was right ; 

So cuddled it the livelong day, 

And pressed it to his cheek at night 



I40 THE CHILDREN'S CHRISTMAS. 

And then I thought, 'T is writ " He gives 
To His beloved while they sleep ; " 

And deeper meanings found me out, 
While lay my boy in slumbers deep. 




THE CHILDREN'S CHRISTMAS. 

JHIS little pageant, well I know, 

Inspired by love did sweetly grow ; 
And well I know the pageant vast, 
All beautiful from first to last. 
Of worlds on worlds in phalanx deep. 
From suns that blaze to vines that creep, 
From planets singing on their way 
To flowers that dread the eye of day. 
From rivers that rejoicing go 
To brooks that murmur sweet and low, 
From genius, with its years of fame, 
To simple lives devoid of blame, — 
Oh, well I know this pageant fair 
Is proof of love beyond compare ! 

O Love, that dost with goodness crown 
The years through all the ages down ! 



THE CHILDREN'S CHRISTMAS, 14 1 

'Tis in Thy strength the mountains stand. 
The seasons roll at Thy command, 
And rooted are all things that bless 
Deep in Thy everlastingness. 
The pith of all our Christmas cheer 
Is that Thy life is ever near ; 
Within Thy circling arms we lie, 
Lapped in Thy great infinity. 

All praise and honor to His name, 
Who, spite of taunt and cruel shame. 
Was brave to teach, as wise to know. 
That these great things are surely so. 
For this our loving court we pay 
At His dear feet on Christmas day ; 
For this through all the coming years. 
In all our joys and hopes and fears. 
We still will pay Him reverence due. 
And in His witness, brave and true, 
Hear echoes clear, through all the din. 
Of that deep voice which speaks within. 



Brooklyn, 1872. 



142 GRACE BEFORE MEAT, 




GRACE BEFORE MEAT. 

]p%^|GAIN the Christmas board is spread, 
Again we gather round ; 
And thanks too deep for words go up 
To God without a sound. 

Thanks for the common blessings first, 

The commonest of all, 
The daily bread, the manna sweet, 

That never fails to fall, — 

The daily bread, the daily joy, 
The greeting morn and eve. 

The kiss of love, the kiss of peace 
Which daily we receive. 

And if with all the joy He sends 

Some grief is also there. 
We praise Him still that He doth give 

The patience that can bear, — 



GRACE BEFORE MEAT. 143 

Can bear, and through the bearing find, 

Within the hardest lot, 
Some hidden grace which none may know 

Save those who have it got. 

But shall this merry time go past, 

And thanks remain unsped 
For Him who said so long ago, 

" I am the living Bread ; " 

For Him, star-lit by Mary's smile, 

Whom simple shepherds found. 
And wise men from the brooding East, 

Where oxen stood around ? 

No wonder that they worshipped Him ! 

He was a baby sweet ; 
They had been foolish not to kneel 

And kiss His rosy feet. 

But little recked they as He lay 

In such a lowly place, 
That He should be the Man of men, 

The captain of His race. 

"^e differ when we speak of Him, 

Our words are not the same. 
But in our heart there burns for aye 

Oiit undivided flame. 



144 ANNUS MIRABILIS. 

Our words must differ, but our hearts 
Still yield Him reverence due ; 

We love in spite of all our creeds \ 
Our love at least is true. 

And if, above the starry skies, 
He knows of what is here, 

He knows there is a place for Him 
At all our Christmas cheer. 

1873- 



ANNUS MIRABILIS. 



I. 



HAT year of all Thy years, O Father mme, 
Is not more wonderful than words can say ? 
The starry night, the splendor of the day — 
Are not, all years, these benefactions thine ? 
Doth not each spring reveal a life divine. 
Each summer nourish with unstinted ray, 
Each autumn make the leafy woodlands gay, 
And load with clusters every clinging vine ? 
Doth not each winter make the silent stars 
Into more awful spaces seem withdrawn, 




ANNUS MIRABILIS. T45 

And deck with softer radiance the cars 

That speed the sunset and bring back the dawn, 
And over hill and valley slow unfold 
A vesture rarer than were cloth of gold ? 



II. 



And yet, O God ! the half has not been told. 
I have not named the rapture of delight 
When new-born spirits break upon our sight ; 

When love, at first so timid, groweth bold, 

And all the highest heavens seem unrolled. 
That we may read in characters of light 
Of days to which succeeds no dark'ning night ; 

But the night cometh drearily and cold. 

Yet is death wonderful as well as life, 
And wonderful the hope of life in store, 

And wonderful all labor and all strife 

For better things than e'er have been before. 

Yea, God, the wonder of thy humblest years 

Fills all my soul with laughter and with tears. 

December 31, 1874. 



146 



SADNESS AND GLADNESS. 



SADNESS AND GLADNESS. 




HERE was a glory in my house, 

And it is fled ; 
There was a baby at my heart, 
And it is dead. 



And when I sit and think of him, 

I am so sad, 
That half it seems that never more 

Can I be glad. 

If you had known this baby mine. 

He was so sweet 
You would have gone a journey just 

To kiss his feet. 



He could not walk a single step. 

Nor speak a word ; 
But then he was as blithe and gay 

As any bird 



SADNESS AND GLADNESS, 147 

That ever sat on orchard-bough, 

And trilled its song, 
Until the listener fancied it 

As sweet and strong 

As if from lips of angels he 

Had heard it flow ; 
Such angels as thy hand could paint, 

Angelico ! 

You cannot think how many things 

He learned to know 
Before the swift, swift angel came, 

And bade him go ; 

So that my neighbors said of him, 

He was so wise 
That he was never meant for earth. 

But for the skies. 

But I would not believe a word 

Of what they said ; 
Nor will I, even now, although 

My boy is dead. 

For God would be most wicked, if. 

When all the earth 
Is in the travail of a new 

And heavenly birth, 



148 SADNESS AND GLADNESS. 

As often as a little Christ is found 

With human breath, 
He, like another Herod, should resolve 

Upon its death. 

But should you ask me how it is 

That yours can stay. 
Though mine must spread his little wings 

And fly away, 

I could but say, that God, who made 

This heart of mine. 
Must have intended that its love 

Should be the sign 

Of His own love ; and that if He 

Can think it right 
To turn my joy to sorrow, and 

My day to night, 

I cannot doubt that He will turn, 

In other ways, 
My winter darkness to the light 

Of summer days. 

I know that God gives nothing to 

Us for a day ; 
That what He gives He never cares 

To take away. 



SADNESS AND GLADNESS. I49 

And when He comes and seems to make 

Our glory less, 
It is that, bye-and-bye, we may 

The more confess 

That He has made it brighter than 

It was before, — 
A glory shining on and on 

For evermore. 

And when I sit and think of this, 

I am so glad, 
That half it seems that never more 

Can I be sad. 



Brooklyn, 1865. 




150 LITTLE HANNAH. 




LITTLE HANNAH. 

HEN the earliest life of spring 
First began to stir the sod, 
And a blossom here and there 
Softly sang the praise of God, 



On a day of days there sprang, 
Perfect from the dim unknown, 

Such a flower as never yet 

Had in field or meadow grown. 

Yet indeed akin it was 

To the blossoms, sweet and rare, 
That in March their beauty bring 

To the eager, waiting air. 

Little sister did she seem 

Of the wind-flowers full of grace ; 
Of the " Quaker-ladies " one, 

Or the arbutus' gentle race. 



LITTLE HANNAH. 15 1 

Cousin of the violets too, 

With their color in her eyes. 
Greeting all the wonder new 

With a look of sweet surprise. 

All the flowers that with her came, 
Had their hour and went away ; 

But the little blue-eyed maid 
Tarried many a pleasant day. 

Thrice the spring to summer grew, 
Thrice the merry autumn browned, 

Thrice the winter whiteness fell 
Tenderly adown, around. 

But before again the spring 

'Gan to softly shoot and stir, 
Happy ways that she had known. 

Knew, alas, no more of her ! 

Gone the dainty little maid ! 

Gone the blossom heavenly fair 1 
Gone, — but leaving all around 

Wondrous sweetness in the air. 

Flowers are still her next of kin. 
Flowers that are so dainty sweet ; 

Pansies are for thoughts of her, 
Roses for her gladness meet. 



152 LITTLE HANNAH, 

And in all her little world, 
If you can, the smallest spot 

Find, that does not sweetly show 
Blossoms of forget-me-not. 

January 28, 1883. 




A DOUBLE MEANING. 153 




A DOUBLE MEANING. 



AMMA, I see you over there," 

He said, and then he sank to rest, 
D Happy to feel that she was near 

To guard and tend his little nest. 



But when the morning broke, it brought 
Another night of deeper gloom ; 

For the blue heaven of Jamie's eyes 
No longer lighted all the room. 

No answering word or look or smile 
Our hungry hearts might hope to win , 

And the faint breathing fainter grew, 
Then stopped, and did no more begin. 

" Mamma, I see you over there : " 
No simpler words could he have said, 

But now that he is gone they seem 
A message from the living dead. 



154 A DOUBLE MEANING. 

" I see you over there," it says, 

" Father and Mother, in your pain ; 

I see the way that I have come, 
But may not traverse it again. 

" But still my thought can go to you. 
As yours can come and stay with me ; 

And each can know the other near, 
And greatly joy with it to be. 

" And so if, as the days go past, 

Our thoughts can thus together bide, 

Whate'er is missed, are we not still 
Living together side by side } " 

This is the message. Well we know 
'Tis but the echo of our prayer ; 

And yet we trust that 'tis a sign 
Of what is true of Here and There. 



1873 




UNDER THE SNOW, 



155 



UNDER THE SNOW. 




EEP under snow the mountain world 
For many a week had lain ; 
Deep in my heart for many a year 
Had hid its viewless pain. 



There came a day of warmer sun 
From out the winter sky, 

And premonitions of the spring 
Went wandering sofdy by. 

And lo, a bit of earth revealed ! 

And lo, at little feet 
Pressing the cold and cheerless sod, 

One pansy, pure and sweet ! 



*' Pansies for thoughts ! " and oh, for me 

This pansy of the snow 
Has thoughts that deeper than the depths 

Of mountain bases go, — 



J 56 UNDER THE SNOW, 

Thoughts of my httle baby flower 
Beneath the mounded sod ; 

Thoughts of the baby hfe that lives 
Forevermore with God. 

Oh, gently falls the glistening snow 
Where he so long has lain ! 

Oh, gently fall the years of God 
Upon my bitter pain ! 

Fall deeper yet, O years of God ! 

There comes another day 
When winds from off the hills beyond 

Shall melt your snows away ; 

And many a dear, long-hidden thing 
Shall then be brought to light ; 

And then who knows but my lost Face 
Shall bloom again, as bright 

As this wee blossom, hid so long, 

But waiting tenderly 
Till it could bring to me a thought 

Of Immortality ! 

February 12, 1881. 



COMFORT IN SORROW. 



COMFORT IN SORROW. 




A SONG OF TRUST. 

LOVE Divine, of all that is 
The sweetest still and best, 
Fain would I come and rest to-night 
Upon thy sheltering breast. 

As tired of sin as any child 

Was ever tired of play, 
When evening's hush has folded in 

The noises of the day ; 

When just for very weariness 

The little one will creep 
Into the arms that have no joy 

Like holding him in sleep ; 

And looking upward to Thy face, 
So gentle, sweet, and strong 

In all its looks for those who love, 
So pitiful of wrong, 



l6o A SONG OF TRUST. 

I pray Thee turn me not away, 

For, sinful though I be, 
Thou knowest every thing I need 

And all my need of Thee. 

And yet the spirit in my heart 
Says, Wherefore should I pray 

That Thou shouldst seek me with Thy love. 
Since Thou dost seek alway ? 

And dost not even wait until 

I urge my steps to Thee ; 
But in the darkness of my life 

Art coming still to me. 

I pray not, then, because I would ; 

I pray because I must ; 
There is no meaning in my prayer 

But thankfulness and trust. 

I would not have Thee otherwise 

Than what Thou ever art ; 
Be still Thyself, and then I know 

We cannot live apart. 

But still Thy love will beckon me 
And still Thy strength will come, 

In many ways to bear me up 
And bring me to my home. 



1865. 



A SONG OF TRUST, 161 

And Thou wilt hear the thought I mean, 

And not the words I say ; 
Wilt hear the thanks among the words 

That only seem to pray ; 

As if Thou wert not always good, 

As if Thy loving care 
Could even miss me in the midst 

Of this Thy temple fair. 

If ever I have doubted Thee, 

How can I any more, 
So quick to-night my tossing bark 

Has reached the happy shore ; 

And, even while it sighed, my heart 

Has sung itself to rest, 
O Love Divine, forever near. 

Upon Thy sheltering breast ! 




1 62 THE OTHER SIDE, 




THE OTHER SIDE. 

jVlMBING the mountain's shaggy crest, 

{ wondered much what sight would greet 
My eager gaze whene'er my feet 
Upon the topmost height should rest. 

The other side was all unknown ; 

But, as I slowly toiled along. 

Sweeter to me than any song 
My dream of visions to be shown. 

Meanwhile the mountain shrubs distilled 
Their sweetness all along my way. 
And the delicious summer day 

My heart with rapture overfilled. 

At length the topmost height was gained ; 

The other side was full in view ; 

My dreams — not one of them was true, 
But better far had I attained. 



THE OTHER SIDE. 163 

For far and wide on either hand 

There stretched a valley broad and fair, 
With greenness flashing everywhere, — 

A pleasant, smiling, home-like land. 

Who knows, I thought, but so 'twill prove 
Upon that mountain-top of death, 
Where we shall draw diviner breath, 

And see the long-lost friends we love. 

It may not be as we have dreamed. 
Not half so awful, strange, and grand ; 
A quiet, peaceful, home-like land. 

Better than e'er in vision gleamed. 

Meanwhile along our upward way 

What beauties lurk, what visions glow 1 
Whatever shall be, this we know 

Is better than our lips can say. 



Bethel, Me., 1874. 




1 64 NOS MORITURI TE SALUTAMUS. 




NOS MORITURI TE SALUTAMUS. 



^OT, Heavenly Father, that we ask or hope 
An idle heaven beyond the sea of death, 
Do we, about to die, salute Thee thus 
With our fast-failing breath. 

For we have found the dearest joy of earth 
In work for Thee and for our fellow-men ; 

Dying, we would not lay the burden down ; 
As now, so be it then. 

Not that we claim reward for duty done, 

Though ne'er so bravely, in this mortal strife, 

Do we demand of Thee, O God, our God, 
A never-ending life. 

For it has been reward enough for us 
To do the duty for its own sweet sake. 

We have our dues, but not the less our cry 
For life to come we make. 



NOS MORITURI TE SALUTAMUS. 165 

Over a few things we have faithful been : 
Now over many do Thou give us rule \ 

For work, more work ; for lessons learned, to be 
For ever in Thy school. 

Not that we want a better world than this , 
Rather that this is so divinely good ; 

And what is best in it doth ever taste 
As 'twere immortal food. 

Not that w^e hope to reach some happy shore, 
Where storms shall never dim the summer sky, 

Where struggle, sorrow, pain, shall be no more. 
Seems it less hard to die. 

We know too well the good of sorrow here ; 

What after freshness lurks in every storm ; 
What strength and beauty, pain and struggle, bring 

In their forbidding form. 

Thus, O our Father, we about to die 
Salute Thee, not in selfishness or fear ; 

And dare believe that there is more beyond 
Than we have dreamed of here. 



I S70. 



l66 LIFE AFTER DEATH, 




LIFE AFTER DEATH. 

OFT was the air of spring, and ai his feet 
The turf, full swift, was turning green and 

sweet, 

As from the city Rabbi Nathan passed, 
Musing on Him who is the first and last. 

The tuneful birds he heard in woodlands dim. 
Wooing each other with that vernal hymn, 
Which, flowing first from the great heart above, 
Keeps fresh the world with its perpetual love. 

Anon he came to where with eager toil 
An aged man, fretting the fragrant soil 
With his sharp spade, did make a space to set 
A cobar tree, — the greatest wonder yet ! 

For seventy years the cobar tree must grow. 
Full seventy years leaves bear and shadows throw, 
Ere to fair fruit its fair, sweet blossoms turn, 
For all the Day-god's ever-flowing urn. 



LIFE AFTER DEATH. 167 

•' What madness this ! " doth Rabbi Nathan ciy ; 
" Thou workest here as one not born to die ; 
As if thyself didst hope that of this tree 
Fruit yet should come to be a joy to thee." 

Then turned the aged man, and gently said : 
" This tree shall grow long after I am dead ; 
But though its fruit my hands may never gain, 
My planting, Rabbi, will not be in vain. 

*' Have I not eaten of the cobar tree ? 
My father's father planted it for me. 
So plant I this, that in the coming days 
My children's children may my labor praise." 

" Thou fool ! " the Rabbi said, " to work for those 
Who may or not be, Heaven only knows. 
All earthly things full soon must pass away, 
'Tis only work for Heaven that will pay." 

He wandered on, and, as the sun now low, 

Rushed to its setting, and a sudden glow 

Filled all the west, he laid him down to sleep, 

Nor guessed how long the charm its power would keep. 

For many a moon did wax and wane again, 
And many a year did bring its joy and pain, 
Ere he awoke, and not far off beheld 
What seemed the tree that he had known of eld. 



1 68 LIFE AFTER DEATH. 

But now it was full grown, and at its root 
A man, full grown, was eating of its fruit, 
Who said, when asked how came it thus to be, 
" My father's father planted it for me." 

Then Rabbi Nathan knew that seventy years, 
With all their precious freight of smiles and tears, 
Had fled since he had lain him down to sleep. 
And felt the slumber o'er his eyelids creep. 

He wandered back into the city street. 
But saw no friend with voice of love to greet ; 
Yet in the schools where he of old did teach, 
He heard the sages quote his silver speech. 

And then he saw that not in heaven alone, 
But here on earth, we live when we are gone ; 
Too late he learned the lesson of to-day : 
The world goes on when we are gone away. 

The world goes on ; and happiest is he 
Who in such wise wins immortality. 
That, should he sleep for ever in the grave, 
His work goes on and helps the world to save, 

March, 187 i. 



KING EDWIN'S FEAST. 1 69 




KING EDWIN'S FEAST. 

HERE was feasting in the hall 
And the beards wagged all. 
Oh ! the board was heaped with food, 
And the ale was like a flood, 
And 'twas bitter winter weather 
When King Edwin and his eldormen and thanes 
Were a-feasting thus together. 

As the board was heaped with food, 
So the hearth was piled with wood ; 
Ay, with oaken logs a score ; 
And the flames did leap and roar. 

And they cast a ruddy glow 
On King Edwin and his eldormen and thanes 

As they feasted in a row. 

All at once they were aware 

Of a flutter in the air, 

As a little sparrow came 

In between them and the flame, 



I70 KING EDWIN'S FEAST. 

Then a moment flew around, 
While King Edwin and his eldormen and thanes 
Wondered whither he was bound. 

Then he vanished through the door, 
And they never saw him more ; 
But up spoke a noble Thane, 
As a silence seemed to reign, 

And a wonder seemed to fall 
On King Edwin and his eldormen and thanes 

As they feasted in the hall : 

"What is all this life of ours. 
With its graces and its powers ? 
It is like the bird that came 
In between us and the flame. 
Stayed a moment in the room 
With King Edwin and his eldormen and thanes, 
Then was off into the gloom. 



t>' 



" So we come out of the night, 
Stay a moment in the light 
Of a warm and pleasant room, 
Then go forth into the gloom. 

Hither somehow tempest-tost, 
O King Edwin ! and you, eldormen and thanes, 

Then again in darkness lost." 



KING EDWIN'S FEAST. 171 

Then another silence fell 

And the first who broke the spell 

Was Paulinius, the Christian, and he said, 

Bowing low a reverent head 

That was white with many years. 
To King Edwin and his eldormen and thanes, 

And his words were dim with tears : 

" Oh ! not merely tempest-tost. 
Not again in darkness lost. 
Is the little bird that came 
In between us and the flame ; 

For the bird will find his nest. 
So, King Edwin, and you, eldormen and thanes, 

Be not your hearts distressed. 

" Not from darkness comes the soul, 
Nor shall darkness be its goal. 
For that, too, there is a nest, 
Whither flying it shall rest 

Evermore. It must be so." 
Said King Edwin and his eldormen and thanes, 

" Would to God that we might know '"' 



1874 



172 BUDDHA'S LESSON, 




BUDDHA'S LESSON. 

ISAGOTAMI saw her first child's face ; 
She saw him grow in knowledge and in grace j 
But it was only for a little space. 

Kisagotami saw him lying dead ; 

Against her heart she pressed his curly head, 

And forth into the neighbors' houses sped. 

" Something to heal my darling's hurt ! " she cried. 
" Girl, thou art mad," was all that each replied. 
But one : " Thy cure with Buddha doth abide." 

Still holding the dead child against her heart, 

She found the prophet, and made known her smart ; 

" Buddha, canst cure him with thy wondrous art ? " 

" A grain of mustard-seed," the sage replied, 
" Found where none old or young has ever died, 
Will cure the pain you carry in your side." 

Kisagotami wandered forth again, 

And in the homes of many hundred men 

She sought the seed where death had never been 



DEATH AND SPRING. 1 73 

'Twas all in vain. Then in a lonely wood 
Her child with leaves she buried as she could, 
And once again in Buddha's presence stood. 

** Daughter," he said, "hast found the magic seed ? " 
And she : " I find that every heart doth bleed ; 
That every house of death hath taken heed." 

Then Buddha said : " This knowledge is thy cure. 
Thy sorrow, soon or late, for all is sure ; 
Therefore, my child, be patient and endure." 

February, 1874. 



DEATH AND SPRING. 

C. p. G. 




Y noble friend is dead. 
And in his narrow bed 
[] The earth doth gently rest 
Upon his gentle breast. 



And still the sun doth pour 
Its brightness as before ; 
And still in every place 
The spring comes on apace ; 



174 DEATH AND SPRINO. 

And still the sweet flowers blow, 
The flowers he cared for so ; 
And still the wee birds sing, 
At rest or on the wing. 

" O cruel sun," I said, 
" To shine when he is dead ; 
O cruel spring, to come 
When his dear lips are dumb ; 
O cruel flowers, to bloom 
When he is in the tomb ; 

cruel birds, to sing, 
And he not listening ! " 

Then from an inner sky 

1 heard a soft reply : 
" Doth any day go by 

And not some loved one die, 
Though all unknown to thee. 
As dear as thine could be ? 
Not thou alone dost cry 
For nature's sympathy. 
To every mourning heart 
The sunshine brings a smart. 
The spring seems all too gay, 
The flowers are wished away, 
The birds' songs in the trees 
Are subtle mockeries. 



DEATH AND SPRING, 1 75 

" If grief could have its will, 
All days were dark and chill. 
The spring would never come ; 
The flowers would never bloom ; 
The birds would never sing, 
At rest or on the wing. 

" Rest, troubled spirit, rest : 
God knoweth what is best. 

"The sunshine thou dost chide 

Hath healing in its tide ; 

The spring that comes apace 

Shall touch thee with its grace ; 

The flowers their sweet perfume 

Shall shed upon his tomb ; 

The birds in woodlands dim 

Shall make lament for him ; 

And thou some day shalt see 

That it was best for thee 
That all thy sorrow was so strangely blent 
With nature's harmony of full content." 



May, 1874. 



176 SEALED ORDERS. 




SEALED ORDERS. 

'* Thouknowest not now, but thou shall know hereifter." 

UR life is like a ship that sails some day 
To distant waters, leagues on leagues away ; 
Not knowing what command to do and dare 
Awaits her when her eager keel is there. 



Birth, love, and death are ports we leave behind, 
Borne on by rolling wave and rushing wind ; 
Bearing a message with unbroken seal, 
Whose meaning fain we would at once reveal. 

And there are friends who stand upon the shore 
And watch our sail till it is seen no more ; 
And cr}^, " Oh ! would that we might know the way 
The brave ship goes for many a weary day ! " 

It may not be. But ever and anon 
Some order, sealed at first, we ope and con ; 
So learn what next, so east or westward fly, 
And ne'er again that port of Birth espy. 



SEALED ORDERS. 1/7 

How many another craft goes dancing by ! 
What pennants float from morn and evening sky ! 
By day how white our wake behind us streams ! 
By night what golden, phosphorescent gleams ! 

There comes a day when Love, that lies asleep, 
The fairest island in the mighty deep, 
Wakes on our sight ; its fragrant shores we reach, 
And grates our keel upon its shining beach. 

There do we stay awhile ; but soon again 
We trim our sails to seek the open main ; 
And now, whatever winds and waves betide, 
Two friendly ships are sailing side by side. 

W^here lies their course in vain they seek to know. 
" Go forth," the Spirit says, and forth they go ; 
Enough that, wheresoever they may fare, 
Alike the sunshine and the storm they share. 

Islands that none e'er visited before 
Invite to land with easy-shelving shore ; 
Circes and Sirens fling their challenge out, 
Charybdis deafens Scylla's deafening shout ; 

But still these ships keep joyful company, 
And many a new, strange land they haste to see. 
In port of Love 'twas pleasant to abide. 
But, oh ! Love's sea is very deep and wide. 



178 SEALED ORDERS. 

Ay, deep and wide, and yet there comes a day 
When these fond ships must sail a parted way ; 
The port of Death doth one of them beguile, 
The other lingers for a little while. 

Lingers as near as she may dare to go. 
And plies the cold, gray offing to and fro ; 
Waiting, impatient, for the high command 
To sail into the shadow of the land. 

Is this the end ? I know it cannot be. 
Our ships shall sail upon another sea ; 
New islands yet shall break upon our sight, 
New continents of love and truth and might. 

But still not knowing, still with orders sealed, 
Our track shall lie across the heavenly field ; 
Yet there, as here, though dim the distant way, 
Our strength shall be according to our day. 

The sea is His. He made it, and His grace 
Lurks in its wildest wave, its deepest place. 
Our truest knowledge is that He is wise ; 
What is our foresight to His sweet surprise ? 



187 1. 



NO MORE SEA. 179 



NO MORE SEA. 



I. 




S, when the friends we dearly love 

Go sailing over sea, 
For all the joy to which they go, 

Our hearts will saddened be ; 



So when upon that sea which rolls 
All earth and heaven between, 

Those whom we love, upon the deck 
Of death's great ship are seen ; 

For all the joy to which they go, 
Though heaven be e'er so sweet, 

And e'er so good and wonderful 
The folk they go to meet ; 

As with intensest gaze we watch. 
And see them fade from sight, 

God help us, but our human hearts 
Are any thing but light ! 



l8o NO MORE SEA, 



II. 



As, when the friends we dearly love 

Have gone beyond the sea, 
The far-off lands in which they bide 

More real get to be : 

So when our loved ones once have crossed 

Death's lone and silent sea. 
And in a country new and strange 

Found immortality, 

The heavenly land in which they bide, 

Which erst did ever seem 
An unsubstantial pageant vast, — 

A dreamer's idle dream, — 



*> 



Becomes as solid to my soul 

As is the earth I tread, 
What time I walk with reverent feet 

The city of the dead. 

Not Europe seems so real to me. 

The Alps not so eterne. 
As that dear land for which at times 

My heart doth inly burn. 



THREE HAPPY SOULS. l8l 

And not so sure am I that whom 

The Atlantic's waves divide 
Will meet again some happy day, 

And linger side by side, 

As that the day shall surely come 

When I with all I love 
Shall meet again, and clasp and kiss. 

In that dear land above. 

May, 1870. 

THREE HAPPY SOULS. 

RARE sweet day of June ! What is it gives 
To thy dear rapture a diviner power ? 

It is that I have seen three happy souls, 
All in the fleeting of a single hour. 

One was a maiden, with forereaching sense 

Feeling amid the lustre of her hair 
The fragrant blossoms of that wifely crown 

Which, when June days are longest, she will wear. 

And all her thoughts were going to and fro. 
And building from that blessed day and hour 

A nest wherein her heart already sang 

Sweet songs of home and love's eternal power. 




l82 THREE HAPPY SOULi^. 

One was a mother, and her babe, new-born 

Lay on her arm and murmured 'gainst her heart 

Something that had no need of words to tell 
The mystic meaning it would fain impart. 

She understood. God had revealed Himself 
Once more, as in the manger-nest of old ; 

She, too, had seen the Father, full of grace, -~- 
Did even then Him to her bosom hold. 

And these were happy. But the happiest 
Was one who waited for a voice to say, 

" Friend, come up higher." Fearing only this : 
That he might be too willing to obey. 

For pain had worked on him its perfect will. 

And weaned him quite from all our earthly ways, 

And it was joy to think of rest at last 
And the long quiet of the heavenly days. 

The maiden love had found, the mother life ; 

He had found both in finding death alone ; 
And, as the bridegroom murmurs to the bride. 

Murmured his heart, " My Beautiful, my own ! " 

Oh, think not that with fancies sweet and fond 
He cheated his poor heart to false repose ! 

Our bravest hopes are shadows vague and cold 
Of better things the Spirit only knows. 



THE TWO WAITINGS, 1 83 

The child shall grow apace ; the bridal wreath 
Shall win a costlier beauty and perfume ; 

While he whom we call dead shall work and wait 
In other gardens of perennial bloom. 

Brooklyn, June, 1872. 



THE TWO WAITINGS. 



I. 




EAR hearts, you were waiting a year ago 
For the glory to be revealed ; 
You were wondering deeply, with bated breath, 
What treasure the days concealed. 



Oh, would it be this, or would it be that ? 

Would it be girl or boy ? 
Would it look like father or mother most ? 

And what should you do for joy ? 

And then one day, when the time was full, 
And the spring was coming fast. 

The tender grace of a life out-bloomed. 
And you saw your baby at last. 



1 84 THE TWO WAITINGS. 

Was it, or not, what you had dreamed ? 

It was, and yet it was not : 
But, oh ! it was better a thousand times 

Than ever you wished or thought. 



II. 



And now, dear hearts, you are waiting again, 
While the spring is coming fast ; 

For the baby that was a future dream 
Is now a dream of the past ; 

A dream of sunshine, and all that's sweet , 

Of all that is pure and bright ; 
Of eyes that were blue as the sky by day, 

And as soft as the stars by night. 

You are waiting again for the fulness of time, 

And the glory to be revealed ; 
You are wondering deeply, with aching hearts, 

What treasure is now concealed. 

Oh, will she be this, or will she be that ? 

And what will there be in her face 
That will tell you sure that she is your own 

When you meet in the heavenly place t 



WHERE? 185 

As it was before, it will be again, 

Fashion your dream as you will ; 
When the veil is rent, and the glory is seen, 

It will more than your hope fulfil. 



April, 1873. 




WHERE ? 

HAT is her body lying there, 

So sweetly still, 
As if but sleep had worked thereon 
Its perfect will. 

The violets strewn about her seem 

To haunt her rest ; 
And, as in dreams, she clasps the rose 

Upon her breast. 

How strange it is we are so sure 

She is not there, 
Though all her precious outwardness 

Is still so fair ! 

For we have seen her just as still 

Full oft before ; 
But now we know those drowsy lids 

Will ope no more. 



1 86 WHERE? 

She is not there ; and, if not there, 

Where must she be ? 
Elsewhere or nowhere, that at least 

Our thought can see. 

Nowhere ? But then — oh, shallow thought ! 

She is no more. 
The most has perished, but the least 

Is as before. 

This cannot perish ; this may change 

From form to form ; 
In grass and blossom reaching up 

To sun and storm. 

A thousand summers shall grow pale 

Through all the land, 
And still her precious dust shall lie 

In God's right hand ; 

And, lying there, shall take the shape 

He thinketh best, 
But never lovelier than is now 

On it impressed. 

And shall the garment that she wore 

Exist so long, 
And she that wore it be — as is 

An ended song ? 



WHERE? 187 

An ended song ? But even that 

Is somewhere still, 
It doth the heart with burden sweet 

Of memory fill. 

May not her Somewhere be as much 

As that; no more ? 
To walk in dream-land up and down 

A sobbing shore ? 

To live in deeds, for her dear sake 

Made pure and true ; 
In great aspirings that from her 

Their being drew. 

But that which lieth there, so still, 

In grass and flower 
Shall live again, nor less for that 

Be memory's dower. 

And shall the mask she wore have thus 

A twofold life, 
And she that wore it only live 

Where thought is rife ? 

And so from Nowhere back my heart 

Returns in glee ; 
She is not there, since, having been, 

She still must be. 



1 88 WHERE? 

But, oh ! how vast and dim appears 

That Elsewhere land, 
Where she, with others gone before, 

Walks hand in hand ! 

My thought goes forth to seek her there, 

But soon returns, 
Dazed by that rose of light wherein 

Her spirit burns. 

Content to leave her there in peace 

With her dear God, 
It Meanders in the earthly paths 

Her feet have trod. 

Then from her high and holy place. 

Full soon I know. 
Her thought sweeps down, my thought to meet 

With music low. 

With such sweet trysts as these my soul 

Can be content. 
Until my soul with hers again 

In heaven is blent. 

If thou in thy new home canst be 

As patient, Sweet, 
Our days will be most happy till 

Again we meet. 



THEIR THOUGHTS &» OUR THOUGHTS, 189 




THEIR THOUGHTS AND OUR THOUGHTS. 

F. A. B. AND J. E. C. 



IX years have faded since she went away, 
Six years for her to live in heavenly places, 
To learn the look of blessed angel faces ; 
Six years to grow as only angels may. 



I wonder oft what she is doing there, 
By the still waters that for ever flow ; 
What mighty secrets she has come to know; 

What graces won, divinely sweet and fair. 

I wonder whom of those that went before, 
And those that followed on her shining way, 
She has met there in heaven's auroral day, 

And if they talk their earth life o'er and o'er. 

I think this very mornmg they are met. 
She and one other only three years gone, 
In some dear place in heaven secure and lone, 

To talk of things they never can forget. 



IQO THEIR THOUGHTS ^ OUR THOUGHTS, 

For I am sure that naught of their new life, 
No grace or glory that is there revealed, 
The fountains of past love has ever sealed ; — 

That these will ever be with sweetness rife. 

I cannot think of them as they are now, 

Of the new light that shines upon their faces ; 
I cannot image forth their angel graces ; 

And I am glad, so glad, that it is so. 

We shall get used to such things by and by ; 

The angels will not miss the look they wore ; 

For us they wear the look they wore before ; 
No other look with that, for us, can vie. 

So we will think of them just as they were. 

Their voices sweet and all their pleasant ways \ 
And thoughts like these shall help us through 
the days 

Until we go to meet them where they are. 

Marblehead, July, 1872. 




RECOGNITION, 1 9 1 




RECOGNITION. 

|HEN souls that have put off their mortal gear 
Stand in the pure, sweet light of heaven's 

day, 

And wondering deeply what to do or say. 
And trembling more with rapture than with 
fear, 
Desire some token of their friends most dear. 
Who there some time have made their happy stay. 
And much have longed for them to come that way 
What shall it be, this sign of hope and cheer ? 
Shall it be tone of voice or glance of eye ? 
Shall it be touch of hand or gleam of hair 
Blown back from spirit-brows by heaven's air, — 
Things which of old we knew our dearest by ? 
Oh, naught of this ; but, if our love is true. 
Some secret sense shall cry, 'Tis you and — you 1 

Mav, 18761 



192 IDENTITY, 




IDENTITY. 

OW shall I know myself when I have come 
To that strange land beyond the sea of death, 
Ere the first voice that speaks v/ith heavenly 
breath 
Shall, out of all the sweet and murmurous hum, 
Call me by name ? How know ere I am known 
That I am he who once in other spheres 
Drank to the lees so many golden years 
And called so many loving hearts my own ? 
Doubtless, my God, in ways I cannot guess. 

Thou wilt reveal me to my doubting sense ; 
But, O my love, the sign that most shall bless, 

And bring the swiftest, surest confidence, 
Shall be that in my inmost heart I find 
The thought of thee so lovingly enshrined. 



May, 1876. 



WITH A BOOK OF BALLADS, 193 




WITH A BOOK OF BALLADS. 

" The time is short." 

WEET wife, no ballad, when our days are o'er, 
Shall tell the story of our peace and pain ; 
One little grave shall hold our common dust, 
And feel the fresh'ning of the summer rain. 

A few short years, mayhap, our names shall live 
In children's voices, or their children's sweet ; 

Then all shall be as if we had not known 
This joy of life which is so strange and fleet. 

Yet none the less, so long as life shall last, 
We will drink deep of joy's eternal spring; 

Ay, live as if this life must be our all, — 
As if swift death would sleep eternal bring. 

The time is short ; the more the reason then 

For filling it as full as it can hold 
With thrills of beauty, yearnings for the truth, 

And joys of love and labor manifold. 

Then should it chance, as we would fain believe, 
Life's glory waits us in some other sphere, 

Its first great joy shall be we did not miss 
God's meaning in the glory that is here, 
1868. 



194 ^"-^^^^ HEART OF IT, 




THE HEART OF IT. 

Written upon finding at West Point a blue-bird's nest in an unfilled bombshelL 

SUMMER'S day in leafy June ; 
The birds were all in sweetest tune, 

The roses at their best ; 
But fairest of all things to see, 
That perfect day in June for me, 

A blue-bird's peaceful nest. 

I found it in a hollow shell 

Which crowned, as I remember well, 

A shapely pyramid ; 
Five little eggs were also there, 
Blue as the sky when 'tis most fair, 

Half in the grasses hid. 

O favored shell ! whose kindred went 
On cruel errands to be sent, 

To mutilate and kill ; 
Whilst thou, removed from all the strife, 
Dost feel with love and dawning life 

Thy bosom gently thrill. 



THE HEART OF IT. 1 95 

I said, " This thing which here I see 
Shall be a precious prophecy 

Of what the world shall win, 
When all the days of war shall cease, 
And all the blessed years of peace 

Shall gloriously begin." 

And better yet : peace after war 
Hath many an ugly rent and scar 

For time to smooth away ; 
But peace in war doth not await 
A blessing coming slow and late, — 

Its blessing is to-day. 

My bird's-nest in the hollow shell, 
A heaven miniature in hell, 

Shall symbol be of this : 
That in and through and over all, 
Whatever seeming curse befall, 

God's love for ever is. 



He doth not wait till war is done, 
And all its barren victories won. 

To enter at the door ; 
But in the furnace of the strife 
He bears for aye a charmed life, 

And blesses evermore. 



196 HER CHRISTMAS. 

Deep at the heart of all our pain, 
In loss as surely as m gain, 

His love abideth still. 
Let come what will, my feet shall stand 
On this firm rock at His right hand : 

*' Father, it is Thy will." 

June, 1867. 



HER CHRISTMAS. 

HE happy town is all astir. 

The merry crowds go up and down, 
The bells the happy voices drown. 
But what is all of this to her ? 

It was so much ; for many a day, 

This pleasant Christmas time had been 
Her sweetest music ; blessed din, 

From o'er the hills and far away. 

And she was full of little schemes, 
In loving- wise of help and cheer ; 
Life was so sweet and love so dear ; 

They filled the night with happy dreams. 




HER CHRISTMAS. 197 

And now the wished-for day is come ; 

There 's light and laughter everywhere ; 

But she is lying silent there : 
Her eyes are closed, her lips are dumb. 

Love could not stay her fleeting breath ; 

On Christmas eve it fluttered low ; 

Then Christmas morning came, and, oh. 
How gentle was the face of death ! 

Her Christmas ! Brings the day to her — 
" He gives to His beloved sleep " — 
Only this gift of slumber deep, 

Too deep for any voice to stir. 

Call on her as we may ? Not so : 

Oh, gift with grace diviner fraught 

Than any to the living brought ! — 
What follows after death to know. 

Dearest, such knowledge is for thee ; 

And so thy Christmas joy is more 

Than swells on any mortal shore 
That hears the moaning of the sea. 



1 98 THE TRYSTING-PLACE. 




THE TRYSTING-PLACE. 

" Canst thou by searching find out God ? " 

FRIEND have I, true lover of my soul, 
Whose lightest word to me is dearer far 

Than any treasure which the dark earth holds, 
Or any beauty of the morning star. 



When day is on my heart He enters in 

And crowns it with the brightness of His grace \ 

But more I joy, when night envelops me, 

To feel His presence, though I miss His face. 

But there are times when foolish love of self 
So girdles me as with a wall of flame. 

That, should He seek me, He would find me not, 
Nor answer get if He should call my name. 

And other times when open to His feet 

The doors of my poor house as quickly swing 

As if I were a peasant, and the friend 
For whom I waited had been born a king. 



THE TRYSTING-PLACE. 1 99 

Thus coming once when I was at my best, 

He said " My friend, I would not have thee roam \ 

Dost long to see me ? Go about thy work, 
And I will come and visit thee at home." 

And I in love with all His noble ways, 

Feeling that He in nothing could do wrong, 

Assented, saying, " Even so I will ; 

But quickly come, and make thy visit long, 

" That I may speak with Thee of hidden things, 
Tell Thee alike of all my joy and pain. 

And feel Thy freshness all my spirit through, 
As summer's roses feel the summer rain." 

And then we parted ; but another day 

Had not passed over me before the crowd 

Began to laugh at me and call me fool. 

With here and there a voice that cried aloud, 

" Come, seek with us for him who is your Friend." 
And I was weak enough to them obey, 

And follow them, despite my better thought. 
For many a night and many a weary day. 

We found him not, though ever and anon 
His name we read in books that were of old. 

Which said that once His presence had been sweet, 
That He would come and tenderly enfold 



200 THE TRYSTING-PLACE. 

To His warm heart some man of humble birth, 
And talk with Him in language just as mild 

As that which any mother might repeat 
Above the cradle of her little child. 

And then I said, " This glory must be mine : 
With less than this I cannot be content ; " 

So left the crowd to seek Him as they would, 
And to my home with eager feet I went. 

And what to find ? My Friend awaiting me. 
Here in His place as He had been before ; 

And down I sank as if it ought to be 

That he, my Friend, would be my Friend no more. 

But He, as if, no beggar for His grace, 
I came of right into His presence fair. 

Lifted me up, and from my speechless face 
Put back the masses of my tangled hair, 

And kissed me once and kissed me twice again, 
And said, " Not greater is Thy need of me 

Than is my need, although it seemeth not. 
Of living and communing still with Thee." 



My words are false, and yet my thoughts are true ; 

My friend is God, and ever by His grace. 
Although by searching I can find Him not. 

My soul doth serve us for a trysting-place. 



HIS FORTUNE. 20I 



HIS FORTUNE. 

W. H. W. 




N the pleasant time of spring 

Came my noble friend to me, 
Full of life as any leaf 
Budding on the orchard tree. 



" I am going forth," he said, 
" Sailing down the busy world : 

Fame and fortune I must make 
Ere again my sails are furled." 

Comes the winter crisp and clear : 
What was that the message said ? 

Spring will come another year : 
Not for him, for he is — dead ! 



Yes, thou hast made thy fortune, noble friend ! 
We shall live on, and coax with weary toil 
Some scanty pittance from the grudging soil, 



202 HIS FORTUNE. 

Or strain an aching back long years to tend 
Sticks in the desert, striving still to mend 

Some social wrong, or with a few to moil 

For truths from which the many still recoil : 
Long is the way and doubtful is the end. 
But thou hast made thy fortune, found release 

From sordid care and every grief and pain ; 

Such things shall trouble thee no more again : 
From every sorrow thine is sweet surcease. 

Sailing straight on across the unfathomed main, 
Death hast thou found, and finding that is peace. 

1879. 




HEARD FROM. 203 




HEARD FROM. 

LODDING a weary way, before untried, 
It chanced I came upon a group of men 
Busy about their work with eager ken. 
I spoke to them of one who late had died, — 
Knowing that he along this country-side 

Had toiled with such as these, o'er hill and fen ; 
Asked, had they known my friend ? Oh, gladness when 
Man after man with tender voice replied, 

And spoke his praise ; told of his earnest will, 
The love which they had borne him deep and true, 

The generous passion of his noble skill, 
Still doing well whate'er was his to do. 
Again afoot, I said, " Pray God that I 
May so be heard from when I come to die." 

ZoAR, Mass., 1875. 



204 A TALISMAN, 




A TALISMAN. 

O you have come, my daughter, to the place 

Where childhood ends and maidenhood begins, 
And I, straight- looking in your happy face, 
Where joy o'er fear its daily victory wins 
And hangs its laughing banners in your eyes. 

Make question what to bring you, — what the gift 
That shall be more to you than any prize 

Of gems and gold, as out you gayly drift 
On the great, wide, immeasurable sea? 

I have resolved. Take it, and to thy heart 
Hold it for talisman in years to be. 

Then if, perchance, our ways are far apart. 
Life- or death-severed, say, " This sacred trust 
He gave me once : We can do what we must.^^ 

November 25, 1S83. 



A DEDICATION. 205 




A DEDICATION. 

darling boy, kissed but a moment since, 
And laid away all rosy in the dark, 
Is talking to himself. What does he say? 
Not much, in truth, that I can understand ; 
But now and then, among the pretty sounds 
That he is making, falls upon my ear 
My name. And then the sand-man softly comes 
Upon him and he sleeps. 

And what am I, 
Here in my book, but as a little child 
Trying to cheer the big and silent dark 
With foolish words ? But listen, O my God, 
My Father, and among them thou shalt hear 
Thy name. And soon I too shall sleep. 
When I awake I shall be still with thee. 



1879. 



IN NAZARETH TOWN. 



3fA R V. 

^lA^GING of one who bore this sweetest name 

Long^ long ago^ in bygone centuries^ 
]\Toiher of One for whom our Ch?'istmas trees 

Are green and bright with never-endi7ig fame, 
I think of one whom having seen we love, 

A mother Mary of these latter days, — 
Mother atidwife and friend whose simplest praise 

The metnory of her meekness would reprove ; 
Who, bound long years, was patient in her pain, 

A 7id still forgot her own in others' woe. 
Blessing of blessings a?td immortal gain. 

Such grace as hers to so divi?iely know; 
Daring believe that not His mother trod 

With whiter feet this highway of our God! 




IN NAZARETH TOWN. 

S to the rose's petals pure 
The rose's heart of gold, 
Was Nazareth to the encircling hills 
In the brave days of old. 



The narrow street, a straggling vine, 
Against the hillside clung ; 

And from its stem the village homes 
In meagre clusters hung. 

And down the street, with eager leet, 
The village mothers came : 

O 

Let fancy follow without fear, 
And listen void of blame. 

A simple tale they have to tell. 
The bubbling spring beside : 

The like doth come a thousand times 
By every time and tide. 



2IO IN NAZARETH TOWN. 

No more than this, — enough of bliss 
For Mary, mother mild, — 

Upon her breast there lies at rest 
A little new-born child. 

O happy women at the well, 
For Mary's sake so glad, 

Be tender with the tiny babe 
And with the growing lad ! 

Make sweet and pleasant to his feet 
The path while yet you may ; 

For steep and rough it yet shall be 
For many a weary day. 



The women climb the rugged street, 
And two there are that come 

With pleasant chatter to the door 
Of good-man Joseph's home. 

With them, unseen, we enter in : 

We see the humble state ; 
The gentle mother, innocent 

Of all the impending fate. 

How soft she sleeps, the blessed child 

Upon her bended arm ! 
How far away they seem to-day 

From all the things that harm ! 



IN NAZARETH TOWN. 211 

O mother Mary, closer press 

Your baby to your heart ! 
There comes a day when nothing may 

Allay its cruel smart. 

Those little feet have errands long 

For God and man to go ; 
Those little hands must break the chains 

Of many a grinding woe. 

That little piping voice shall wax 

So terrible and strong, 
That it shall shatter down the walls 

Of many an ancient wrong. 

O happy mother, were it thine 

To see, as we can see, 
All the fierce pain of heart and brain 

That waits for him and thee, — 

The wrath of men, the hate, the scorn, 

The tried and tempted will. 
The friends that falter and betray, 

The enemies that kill, — 

Would strength be thine to bear the load. 

To choose the fateful way 
For him for whom thy life has gone 

In pledge this happy day ? 



212 IN NAZARETH TOWN. 

We may not guess ; nor yet conceive 
Would joy or pain be thine, 

If thou with prescient heart couldst all 
The coming years divine, — 

Couldst see beyond the scourge and cross. 
Beyond the curse and shame, 

Millenniums of godhead wait 
To crown his glorious name. 



Doth even now some vision come 

Of all the things to be, 
That troubled looks across thy face 

Like conscious shadows flee ? 

Till thou dost start, and seem to cry 
'' Oh, less and less of this ! 

Your God is not the man I bore, 
Whose lips I dared to kiss." 



Dear mother of the holy child. 
Thy plea is not in vain : 

Behold the God of centuries long 
Becomes a man again ! 



IN NAZARETH TOWN 

Fade out the sophist's tangled schemes 

As visions of the night ; 
Breaks in the dawn of better things 

As breaks the morning light. 

O brother of the righteous will, 

O brother full of grace ! 
Once more the human glory bathes 

Thy grave and earnest face. 

But all of this to thee is strange, 

As, safe from every harm. 
Thou liest soft and warm and sweet 

Upon thy mother's arm. 

And little dream the village folk. 

Upon the hillside brown. 
What wondrous fame their Jesus' name 

Shall bring to Nazareth town. 



213 



December 25, 18S: 




A LEGEND OF GOOD POETS. 

DELIVERED JUNE 25, 1885, TO THE PHI BETA KAPPA 
FRATERNITY OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY. 

INSCRIBED TO 

MY FRIEND AND TEACHER 

FREDERIC HENRY HEDGE. 




A LEGEND OF GOOD POETS. 



E bold," the legend ran, " Be bold," 
Then, like a billow, backward rolled 
And broken, said, " Be not too bold." 



Alas ! too bold, I fear, am I, 
A slender oaten reed to try 
Where trumpets echo to the sky. 

If but the will could find a way, 
So rare a music would I play 
That one should to the other say, 

" This fellow ne'er before was seen 
Here in our broad and fair demesne ; 
And yet he pipeth well, I ween." 

Oh for one spark of such a fire 

As that which, flaming high and higher, 

Smokeless, we saw at length expire ! 

It sweetened all the atmosphere 
With pure affections, and with dear 
Homekeeping thoughts to help and cheer. 



2l8 A LEGEND OF GOOD POETS. 

Beneath your elms he walks no more ; 
His foot no longer treads the floor 
Whereon our greatest trod of yore. 

Gone ! but his place is kept apart ; 
Wide as the range of human art 
He is — the Poet of the Heart. 



And where is he, the gentle seer, 

Whose thought and speech were cool and clear 

As mornings of the openmg year ? 

Eyes was he to our feeble sight, 
Ears to our deafness, and a light 
On every path of truth and right. 

He comes no more ; but, should he roam 

Wide as the all-embracing dome 

Of heaven, he still would be at home. 

Still the One Presence finding near 

In every place ; without a fear. 

Still facing God with hope and cheer. 



Him, too, we miss, whom busiest days 
In the great city's crowded ways 
Spoiled not for Nature's simple praise. 



A LEGEND OF GOOD POETS. 219 

Still could his fine, attentive ear 
The laughing brooklet's music hear, 
Far off in Hampshire's mellowing year. 

And well his loving memory knew 

The gentian's fringes blue, — so blue .' — 

And wet with autumn's shining dew. 

The dateless rocks, the lordly trees, — 
Sweeter their runic mysteries 
To him than honey to the bees. 

All these are gone. Katahdin strong, 
Wachusett, Greylock, cry, " How long 
Since we have heard their pleasant song ! " 



Now, God be praised that some remain, 
To take a little from our pain 
For those we may not see again ! 

One is our " Friend " : what sweeter praise ! 
Oh, never may the shortening days 
So bind with snow his cheerful ways 

But they may throng with couriers fleet, 
Each with some message fond and sweet, 
To lay, with reverence, at his feet ! 



220 A LEGEND OF GOOD POETS. 

From fields of cotton, rice, and cane, 
They come as thick as hurrying rain. 
Ride, ride ! for soon 't will be in vain. 

Thrice happy soul, who, in the day 
When Freedom owns no rival sway, 
Might, and yet would not, gladly say : — 

" I waited not till thousands came. 
Till Justice earned but little blame ; 
But in her days of evil fame, 

" When she had few who loved her well, 
And earth for these was very hell, — 
When martyred Lovejoy bleeding fell, 

'' I stood and battled on her side ; 
Gladly for her would then have died ; 
Now, God for this be glorified ! " 

No sham was Whittier's Quaker gun : 
With shattering words, it rent the dun 
Of battle, till the day was won. 

Yet oft, in pauses of the fight. 

His songs would be as clear and bright 

As stars in winter's holiest night. 



A LEGEND OF GOOD POETS. 221 

And still of Truth that maketh free 
He sings, and of the Blessed Three, 
The greatest of them Charity. 

Late into heaven may he return ! 
Long may his '' triumph" be to learn 
What love a noble life can earn ! 



Our Mother's breast he never knew ; 
But still abide her merriest two : 
What can I sing of them to you 

That shall not to your reverence seem 

Faint as a dream within a dream, 

When morning comes with scattering gleam ? 

Sole builder of the one-horse shay ! 
Like that hast thou no charm to stay 
A hundred years unto a day ; 

Still sound as that in every part, 
Dear Autocrat, as now thou art, 
Of every earnest, loving heart? 

Thou who hast sung "Contentment " well, 
Come, now the ominous secret tell 
Of this, without thy magic spell. 



222 A LEGEND OF GOOD POETS. 

Was never feast so humble found 

That, once by thee with laughter crowned, 

It did not wondrously abound. 

And, when in Freedom's darkest year 

Men's hearts were choked with doubt and fear, 

Thy songs were full of hope and cheer. 

O friend, we never can forget 

With what warm tears our eyes were wet 

At thy '* We have a country yet " ! 

And, till that word is true no more, 
Her sons shall love thy pleasant lore. 
And bless thee for its shining store. 



And thou, our Laureate, home returned 
With all the honors thou hast earned. 
How have our hearts within us burned 

With joy and pride at every hit 
Made by thy never-failing wit 
For each occasion fine and fit ! 

Thy countless dinners — every one 
We have enjoyed ; the talk begun, 
Impatient till the rest were done, 



A LEGEND OF GOOD POETS. 223 

We waited for thy voice. How clear 
The ringing laugh, the echoing cheer, 
Sounded across from there to here ! 

But deeper joy our bosoms stirred 
When came thy calmest, bravest word, 
" Democracy 1 " then most preferred 

When all the Old World could impart 
Of ordered custom, perfect art. 
Had laid their spell upon thy heart. 

No "land of broken promise " ours. 
As once we feared : her genius flowers 
In blossoms rude j her crescent powers 

Are stark and crass, but she shall rise 
To every height of great emprise 
Until her forehead strikes the skies. 

Come back, and help her once again ! 
Braid yet once more thy whip, as when 
The temple gold was changed for men ! 

Say not that once the hour is given 

To every nation under heaven 

To make the scales of justice even. 



224 A LEGEND OF GOOD POETS. 

Say that each new, untarnished day 
A " Present Crisis " is, and they 
Are wise who always watch and pray. 

Say what thou wilt, thou shalt not find 
Thou canst a heavier burden bind 
Than suits our glad and willing mind, 

To seek the things that make for peace, 
To strive for freedom's large increase 
Till every bond shall find release. 

From now till then, whatever ban 
Awaits thee from the wrath of man, 
Thy place be ever in the van. 

Our fainting courage reinspire. 

Our spirits touch with quickening fire 

From every heaven of desire. 

Then, when thy genial spirits fail, 
True knight, beyond the mortal veil 
Thine eyes shall see the Holy Grail. 



A Legend of Good Poets : these 
With sweet consenting ministries 
Have served us many a golden year 
With beakers of immortal cheer. 



A LEGEND OF GOOD POETS. 225 

What shall we do when these are gone ? 
The songs they sang will still hve on : 
True bards may yield their vital breath ; 
True songs, — for them there is no death. 

Still up and down the earth they go, 
Whatever worth may sleep below : 
Forever good, forever fair, 
They bring us strength to do and bear. 

And ne'er was living Poet yet 
Who could beguile men to forget 
The poets who had gone to be 
With the immortal company. 

When Homer sang, men sighed in vain 
For Hesiod's old Saturnian strain ; 
When Dante went the hopeless way, 
Vergilius was his guide and stay. 

The living Shakspere walked unknown 
With those who should have been his own, 
Still backward yearning for the day 
When Chaucer rode his pilgrim way. 

'T was Homer dead whose Ilion tall 
Time could not batter to its fall ; 
'T was Dante 'neath his weight of pride 
Bent low upon that mountain's side, 



226 A LEGEND OF GOOD POETS, 

Where well he knew his place would be, 
Whose vision of the mystic Three, 
And much beside, the Centuries gave 
For watchers at his lonely grave. 

When Shakspere slept with small renown 
In Avon's poor provincial town, 
Then, not till then, his fame began 
To take the heavens for its span. 

Great soul, wherever thou dost fare, 
In the wide space of upper air. 
Does any wonder touch thee more 
Than this immeasurable store 

Of honor which the world has brought 
At length to thy imperial thought ; 
Save only that thyself couldst know 
Thyself so little here below ? 

• •••*••• 

But shall the mighty poets who are dead. 

And those whom still our love is holding back, 

When they are gone, suffice the need of men. 
Or shall our eager, unappeased lack 

Demand new fountains, as occasions new 
Shall lead for many a hot and weary day 

In desert places, where the ancient wells. 
Once so refreshing, are so far away ? 



A LEGEND OF GOOD POETS. 227 

I dearly love the legend which the lore 
Talmudic once to him of Tarsus gave, — 

The Legend of the Rock, — the prophet's stroke 
Quick-answering with cool and limpid wave 

For man and beast sufficing ; and then came 
The greatest wonder, up and down the land 

The people wandered, with the blessed rock 
Of their salvation ever close at hand. 

It journeyed with them as they journeyed on ; 

Hunger they might, but they could thirst no more ; 
A fountain theirs, whose measureless expense 

Did but increase the illimitable store. 

Behold a sign, a parable, is here 

Of all that wondrous beauty of old time 

Which cannot perish, but with us remains 
As fresh and fair as in its earliest prime 

From age to age ; a Journeying Rock, it pours 
A flood of coolness on the burning sand ; 

Heartened once more, we to each other cry, 
" And is not this, indeed, the Promised Land ? " 



Be not deceived : the mighty poets dead, 
Whose words will ever be entreasured 

In loving hearts, — for all their golden speech, 
The hundredth part of all has not been said. 



228 A LEGEND OF GOOD POETS. 

Nay j nor can all the great ones who abide 
Still here with us upon this mortal side, 

When they have sung their hearts out to the full, 
Exhaust the flood of Beauty's boundless tide. 

There are who tell us that great Pan is dead, 
And all the Muses from the earth have fled. 

Save only Clio and Urania ; 
And these with mortals have been basely wed. 

Nay ; but Terpsichore and Erato 
Still hand in hand, as ever, bravely go ; 

Still whirl the inverted saucers round and round. 
And in a flood the sensual numbers flow. 

'' Ah ! but Melpomene, — she comes no more, 
Or with faint echoes of the great of yore ! 
And grand Calliope, — her epic strain 
Is silent now on every sea and shore. 

*' But, most of all, Polymnia, we crave 

Thy solemn hymn, thy vast and thund'rous wave 

Of music, breaking at our feet, to drown 
The noise that maddens and the fiends that rave." 

Lift up your hearts ! These mournful prophecies 
Suit not the measure of those high degrees 

We have attained ; nor will, though we should drink 
,The cup of sorrow to its very lees. 



A LEGEAD OF GOOD POETS. 229 

Comes not the bard who shall our Epic sing? 
Yet better so than that the Muse should brine: 

Great Homer back, and he should cry, " Alas ! 
What deeds are here that have the epic ring? " 

What men, what deeds, would answer to his call, 
Go read in yonder glory- haunted hall ! 

What hearts like these, which yet were all our own, 
Grew cold and still by Priam's fated wall? 

And you, so faithless, and so full of dread 

That those fair streams, with awe and wonder fed 

From countless heights, will shrink away to naught, 
Till great Religion shall herself be dead, — 

For all these changes that your hearts appall 
The bending heavens shall not stoop nor fall. 

Beyond the worst, the best shall come again ; 
And God himself shall then be all in all. 

" The more thou searchest," said the seer of old, 
" The greater wonders shall thine eyes behold ; " 

And each new wonder, greater than the last, 
With tenderer mystery shall thy heart enfold. 

" Lo here ! " " Lo there ! " the former prophets cried : 
No here nor there hath now the Spirit's tide ; 

Thrills with one voice the atom and the sphere, 
" Yea, it is I, and there is none beside ! " 



230 A LEGEND OF GOOD POETS. 

Shall not the sense that these great things are so 
The Poet's spirit fill and overflow? 

Shall he not sing a braver, sweeter song 
For every marvel we have come to know ? 

Shall not this teeming, rushing, roaring time 
Give warmer pulses to his eager rhyme ? 

Shall not its hopes, its fears, its passionate pain, 
Make all his bells to deeper music chime ? 

Yea and Amen ! For those who listen well 
Begins that music even now to swell ; 

And it shall grow from year to goodlier year, 
Till it shall smite the doors of every hell 

That man has made ; until, for all who grope 
In blinding darkness without any hope. 

Light shall spring up, with freedom wide and sweet 
As this June heaven's blue and boundless cope. 



We shall not live to see that glorious day : 
Far off, too far, its full meridian ray ! 

But, oh, how bright its earliest beams, that lend 
Their cheerful radiance to our steadfast way ! 



HYMNS AND PRAISES. 



HYMNS AND PRAISES. 




FOR THE LAST TIME. 

PLYMOUTH CHURCH, FEB. 27, 1887. 

HE preacher's evening task was done, 
The crowd had gone away ; 
But something pleaded with his heart 
A httle while to stay. 

For him alone the organ pealed ; 

For him alone the choir 
Sang soft and low, in sweet accord, 

The song of his desire, — 

" I heard the voice of Jesus say, 
' Come, weary one, and rest.' " 

What prophecy for him was there 
How litde any guessed ! 

As lovingly he lingered there, 

Ere yet the music died. 
There came two children from the street, 

Unfearing to his side. 



234 FOR THE LAST TIME. 

The old man bowed, and, lifting up 
A soiled and homeless face, 

He kissed it as a mother might, 
Then turned to leave the place. 

On either side the children trod, 
And on the left and right 

A loving hand on either pressed, — 
So out into the night. 

Out, little thinking as he went 

That never any more 
His willing feet should inward go 

That sacred threshold o'er. 

And it was well : more fit good-by 
No genius could devise ; 

No thoughtfulness of loving hearts, 
No wisdom of the wise. 

The " little ones " had always been 
His chiefest joy and care : 

With them alone let him go forth, 
And God be with them there. 

And down the future he shall go. 
And through the enfranchised land, 

A loving smile upon his lips, 
A child on either hand. 



ANOTHER YEAR. 235 




ANOTHER YEAR. 

HAT this shall be a better year 

Than any passed away, 
I dare not at its open door 
To wish or hope or pray. 



Not that the years already gone 
Were wearisome and lone ; 

That so with hope too long deferred 
My heart has timid grown. 

Nay, rather that they all have been 

So sweet to me and good, 
That if for better I should ask 

'Twould seem ingratitude. 

And so with things far off and strange 

I do not care to cope. 
But look in Memory's face and learn 

What largess I may hope. 



236 ANOTHER YEAR. 

Another year of setting suns, 

Of stars by night revealed, 
Of springing grass, of tender buds 

By Winter's snow concealed. 

Another year of Summer's glow, 
Of Autumn's gold and brown, 

Of waving fields, and ruddy fruit 
The branches weighing down. 

Another year of happy work. 

That better is than play ; 
Of simple cares, and love that grows 

More sweet from day to day. 

Another year of baby mirth 
And childhood's blessed ways, 

Of thinker's thought and prophet's dream 
And poet's tender lays. 

Another year at Beauty's feast, 

At every moment spread, 
Of silent hours when grow distinct 

The voices of the dead. 

Another year to follow hard 
Where better souls have trod j 

Another year of life's delight, 
Another year of God. 

Brooklyn, January i, 1873. 



MUGFORD'S VICTORY. 2iy 




MUGFORD'S VICTORY. 

Read in INIarblehead, Mass., May 17, 1876, on the hundredth anniversary 
of the death of Captain James Mugford. 



UR mother, the pride of us all, 

She sits on her crags by the shore, 
And her feet they are wet with the waves 
Whose foam is as flowers from the graves 

Of her sons whom she welcomes no more, 
And who answer no more to her call. 



Amid weeds and sea-tangle and shells 
They are buried far down in the deep, - 

The deep which they loved to career. 
Oh, might we awake them from sleep ! 

Oh, might they our voices but hear, 

And the sound of our holiday bells ! 

Can it be she is thinking of them, 
Her face is so proud and so still. 

And her lashes are moistened with tears ? 

Ho, little ones ! pluck at her hem. 
Her lap with your jollity fill, 

And ask of her thoughts and her fears. 



238 MUG FORD'S VICTORY. 

" Fears ! " — we have roused her at last ; 

See ! her Hps part with a smile, 
And laughter breaks forth from her eyes, — 
" Fears ! whence should they ever arise 

In our hearts, O my children, the while 
We can remember the past ? 

'' Can remember that morning of May, 
When Mugford went forth with his men, 

Twenty, and all of them ours. 

'T is a hundred years to a day. 

And the sea and the shore are as then, 

And as bright are the grass and the flowers ; 
But our twenty — they come not again ! 

" He had heard of the terrible need 

Of the patriot army there 
In Boston town. Now for a deed 

To save it from despair ! 
To thrill with joy the great commander's heart, 
And hope new-born to all the land impart ! 

" ' Hope ! ' ay ; that was the very name 
Of the good ship that came 
From England far away. 
Laden with enginery of death, 
Food for the cannon's fiery breath ; 



MUGFORD'S VICTORY. 239 

Hope-laden for great Washington, 
Who, but for her, was quite undone 
A hundred years ago to-day. 

" '■ Oh, but to meet her there, 
And grapple with her fair, 

Out in the open bay ! ' 
Mugford to Glover said. 

How could he answer nay? 

And Mugford sailed away, 
Brave heart and newly wed. 

" But what are woman's tears, 

And rosy cheeks made pale, 
To one who far off hears 

The generations hail 
A deed like this we celebrate to-day, 
A hundred years since Mugford sailed away ! 

" I love to picture him. 

Clear-eyed and strong of limb, 

Gazing his last upon the rocky shore 

His feet should press no more ; 

Seeing the tall church-steeples fade away 

In distance soft and gray ; 

So dropping down below the horizon's rim 

Where fame awaited him. 



240 MUGFORD'S VICTORY. 

" Slow sailing from the east his victim came. 
They met ; brief parley ; struggle brief and tame. 

And she was ours j 
In Boston harbor safe ere set of sun, 
Great joy for Washington! 

But heavy grew the hours 
On Mugford's hands, longing to bring to me, 
His mother proud, news of his victory ; 
But that was not to be ! 

" Abreast Nantasket's narrow strip of gray 

The British cruisers lay : 

They saw the daring skipper dropping down 

From the much hated rebel-haunted town, 

And in the twilight dim 

Their boats awaited him, 

While wind and tide conspired 

To grant what they desired. 

'' Thickly they swarmed about his tiny craft ; 
But Mugford gayly laughed 
And gave them blow for blow ; 
And many a hapless foe 
Went hurtling down below. 

Upon the schooner's rail 

Fell, like a thresher's flail. 
The strokes that beat the soul and sense apart, 
And pistol-crack through many an eager heart 



MUGFORD'S VICTORY. 241 

Sent deadly hail. 
But when the fight was o'er 
Brave Mugford was no more. 

Crying, with death-white lip, 

' Boys, don't give up the ship 1 ' 
His soul struck out for heaven's peaceful shore. 

" We gave him burial meet ; 

Through every sobbing street 
A thousand men marched with their arms reversed ; 

And Parson Story told, 

In sentences of gold. 
The tale since then a thousand times rehearsed." 

Such is the story she tells, 

Our mother, the pride of us all. 
Ring out your music, O bells, 

That ever such things could befall ! 
Ring not for Mugford alone. 
Ring for the twenty unknown. 
Who fought hand-to-hand at his side, 
Who saw his last look when he died, 
And who brought him, though dead, to his own ! 



242 THE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY 



AN ODE 

FOR THE BROOKLYN CELEBRATION OF THE HUNDREDTH ANNI- 
VERSARY OF CHANNING'S BIRTH, APRIL 7, 1880. 

HUNDRED years ago to-day ! 
How often in this latter time, 
In fond memorial speech or rhyme, 
Has it been ours these words to say ! 

A hundred years to-day, we said, 
Since Concord bridge and Lexington 
Saw the great struggle well begun 

And the first heroes lying dead. 

A hundred years since Bunker Hill 
Saw the red- coated foemen reel 
Once and again before the steel 

Of Prescott's men, victorious still 

In their defeat : a hundred years 
Since Independence bell rang out 
To all the people round about, 

Who answered it with deafening cheers, 



OF CHANNING'S BIRTH. 243 

Proclaiming, spite the scorner's scorn, 

That then and there — the womb of Time 
Through sufferance triumphing sublime — 

Another nation had been born. 

" All men are equal in their birth," 
Rang out the steeple-rocking bell : 
Rejoice, O heaven ! Give heed, O hell ! 

Here was good news to all the earth. 

And still our hearts have kept the count 
Of things that daily brought more near, 
Through various hap of hope or fear, 

The pattern visioned in the mount. 

Nor yet the tale is fully told 

Of all the years that brought us pain. 
And, through the age of iron, again 

The dawning of the age of gold. 



But naught of this has brought us here, 
With the old saying on our lips, 
What time the rolling planet dips 

Into the spring-tide of the year. 

Apart from all the dire alarms 

Of field and flood in that old time. 
With reverent feet our fancies climb 

To where a mother's circling arms 



244 THE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY 

Enraptured hold a babe new born ; 
And who was there to prophesy, 
Though loving hearts beat strong and high, 

Of what a day this was the morn ? 

For in that Kfe but just begun 

The prescient fates a gift had bound, 
As dear to man as any found 

Within the courses of the sun. 

A gift of manhood strong and wise, 
Nor foreign to the lowliest earth, 
Whereon the Word has human birth, 

Howe'er conversant with the skies. 



A hundred years ago to-day 
Since Channing's individual life 
From out the depths of being, rife 

With spiritual essence, found a way. 

And welcome here, and forces kind 
To gently nurse his growing power 
With steady help until the flower 

Of instinct was a conscious mind. 

To him the sea its message brought. 
Filling his mind with sacred awe, 
What time his eye enraptured saw 

Its wildest tumult, or he caught 



OF CHANNING'S BIRTH. 245 

From its deep calm some peace of heart. 

To him the ages brought their lore 
Of books, and living men their store 

Of thought ; and still the better part 

Of all his nurture was the eye 

Turned inward, seeking in the mind 

Some higher, deeper law to find 

Than that which spheres the starry sky. 



And so the youth to manhood came : 
A being frail, — with nameless eyes, 
That seemed to look on Paradise, — 

As clear as dew, as clean as flame. 

He willed in quiet to abide. 

Leading his flock through pastures green. 
And by the waters still, where lean 

The mystic trees on either side. 

But on his listening ear there fell 
The jarring discord of the sects, 
Still making, with their war of texts, 

The pleasant earth a kind of hell. 

He saw the Father's sacred name 

Made dim by Calvary's suffering rood ; 
Man devil-born, — a spawning flood. 

Engendering naught but curse and shame. 



246 THE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY 

He saw the freedom of the mind 

Denied, and doubt esteemed a crime, — • 
The path whereby the boldest climb 

To heights which cowards never find. 

He saw the manhood which to him 
Was image of the highest God 
Trodden, as if it were a clod, 

'Neath slavery's idol- chariot grim. 

He saw it fouled with various sin, 
Sick'ning from lack of air and light, 
Abjuring glories infinite 

To fatten at the sensual bin. 

He heard and saw : his shepherd's rod 
With grieving heart he broke in twain ; 
The wondering world beheld again 

A prophet of the living God. 

Then, as of old, was heard a voice : 

" His way prepare," and, " Come with me. 
All ye that heavy-laden be ; 

Take up my burden and rejoice ! " 

It rang through all the sleepy land 
In tones so sweet and silver clear, 
The waking people seemed to hear 

The accents of divine command. 



OF CHANNING'S BIRTH. 247 

The statesman heard it in his place ; 

The oppressor in his cursed field ; 

And hearts bej^ond the ocean yield 
Allegiance to his truth and grace. 

Our Father, God ; our Brother, man, — 
On these commandments twain he hung 
The law and prophets all ; and rung — 

For all the churches' eager ban — 

A hundred changes deep and strong ; 

Let who would hear him or forbear, 

The ancient lie he would not spare. 
The doubtful right, the vested wrong. 

What words were his of purest flame. 

When, straining up from height to height. 
He felt the Presence infinite, 

And named the Everlasting Name ? 

With him the thought and deed were one : 

Man was indeed the Son of God ; 

" What, strike a man ! " ^ Break every rod 
Of hate beneath the all-seeing sun ! 

So greatly born, how dare to trail 

Our festal garlands in the mire ! 

How dare not evermore aspire 
To Him who is within the veil ! 



1 His argument against flogging in the navy. 



248 THE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY 

In weakness made each day more strong, 
Softly his days went trooping past, 
Till robed in beauty came the last, 

And with the sun he went along : 

Not to oblivion's dreamless sleep, 
But, like the sun, on other lands 
To shine, where other busier hands 

The fields immortal sow and reap. 



And he is ours ! Yes, if we dare. 
Leaving the letter of his creed. 
Say to his mighty spirit, *' Lead ; 

We follow hard ; " — yes, if no care 

Is ours for aught but this : to know 
What is God's truth, and knowing this 
To count it still our dearest bHss 

To go with that where'er it go. 

So shall we go with him ; so feel 

That comfort which the Spirit of Truth 
Gives all who with his loving ruth 

Are pledged to her for woe or weal. 



O thou whom, though we have not seen, 
We love ! upon our toilsome way 
Be thy pure spirit as a ray 

From out that Light which is too clean 



OF CHANNING'S BIRTH. 249 

Uncleanness to behold ; shine clear, 

That to our dimly peering eyes 

All hidden truths, all specious lies, 
That which they are may straight appear. 

There is no ending to thy road, 

No limit to thy fleeting goal, 

But speeds the ever-greatening soul 
From truth to truth, from God to God. 




250 INVOCATION, 




INVOCATION. 

VERLASTING, Holy One ! 
Many a well-beloved son 
Thou dost choose like him of old, 

For Thy truth's sake to be bold. 

Not by any outward sign 

Dost Thou show Thy will divine ; 

Deep within Thy voice doth cry, 

And our spirits make reply. 



Lo, we stand before Thee now, 
And the silent inward vow 
Thou hast heard, in that profound, 
V/here is neither voice nor sound ; 
Thou hast heard, and Thou wilt bless 
With Thy might and tenderness ; 
We have come to do Thy will ; 
With Thy love our spirits fill. 



EASTER MORNING. 25 1 




EASTER MORNING. 

GENTLE tumult in the earth, 

A murmur in the trees, 
An odor faint, but passing sweet, 
Upon the morning breeze, — 
The heralds these, whom thou dost send, 

Dear Spring, that we may know 
How soon the land, from side to side, 
Shall with thy beauty glow. 

And 'tis by tokens faint as these, 

O Truth, that makest free ! 
That thou dost give assurance strong 

Of better things to be : 
Of higher faith and holier trust ; 

Of love more deep and wide ; 
Of hope, whose anchor shall not break. 

Whatever storms betide ! 

O Truth of God, it is not ours 

Thy Summer to foretell. 
Nor ours to taste the fruit which now 

Doth in the blossom swell ; 



252 THE PERFECT LAW. 

But we are glad, and free of heart, 
That we Thy Spring have known : 

Well speed the days whose sweetest praise 
Is to be called Thine own. 



1876. 




THE PERFECT LAW. 

GOD, we come not as of old, 

Distrustful of Thy Law, 
In hope to find Thy seamless robe 
Marred by some sudden flaw, — 
Some rent to let Thy glory through 

And make our darkness shine, 
If haply thus our souls may know 
What power and grace are Thine. 



Thy seamless robe conceals Thee not 

From earnest hearts and true ; 
The glory of Thy perfectness 

Shines all its texture through ; 
And on its trailing hem we read, 

As Thou dost linger near. 
The message of a love more deep 

Than any depth of fear. 



JOHN WEISS. 



253 



And so no more our hearts shall plead 

For miracle and sign ; 
Thy order and Thy faithfulness 

Are all in all divine : 
These are Thy revelations vast 

From earliest days of yore ; 
These are our confidence and peace ; 

We cannot wish for more. 



1874- 




JOHN WEISS. 

VER all the land to-day, 

Where our heroes sleeping lie, 
Blooms the amaranthine flower 
That shall never fade or die. 

But for us a newer grave 

Flushes with as fair a bloom, — 
Bluest of forget-me-nots 

On a stainless soldier's tomb. 



He was fellow with them all. 

Wearers of the blue and gray, — 

Men who, told that they must die. 
Only asked to know the way. 



2 54 THE MEETING-HOUSE. 

Ever first in fieedom's van, 

Took his breast the sheaf of spears ; 

Here is loss too deep for words, 
Here is grief too proud for tears. 

Onward, where he led the way ! 

Many more will have to fall 
Ere the glorious banner waves 

Peace and triumph over all. 

Decoration Day, 1879. 



THE MEETING-HOUSE. 

OME," said the fathers, 'Met us build 
A beacon here beside the sea, 
And trim its lamp for those who toss 
On the wide waters wearily." 

They built it broad ; they built it high ; 

They crowned the work with prayer and song ; 
They set a watchman in the tower 

To tend the light and keep it strong. 

Oh, many a frail and wandering bark 
Since then has seen our beacon licrht. 

And hastened home across the dark, 
Rejoicing in the goodly sight ! 




HYMN. 255 

Long may its starry welcome gleam ; 

Long may it guide the weary home ; 
Long may its tender message stream 

Across the waste of wind and foam ! 

HiNGHAM, Mass., 1879. 

HYMN 

FOR THE DEDICATION OF THE UNITARIAN BUILDING, BOSTON, MASS. 

HE Thought which Love conceived is born, 
To fact the artist's dream has grown, 
And Strength with beauty doth adorn 
Her courses fair of gleaming stone. 

O God, our Father, unto Thee, 
Thy law, thy love, eternal powers, 

Thy truth which ever maketh free, 
We consecrate this home of ours. 

Here may we come with pilgrim feet. 
From wanderings long and distance far, 

To bless Thee for the influence sweet 
Of faith which shines a fadeless star. 

And here, as from a fountain clear 
That pours a glorious river down 

From mountain heights to cool and cheer 
A thousand leagues of turf and town. 




256 HYMN. 

May rise, and flow to field and mart, 
A sacred stream of knowledge pure, 

With quiet for the restless heart, 
And strength all hardness to endure. 

And here may memories great and fair 
Of saints and heroes of our band 

So stir our souls that we may dare, 
As they, to do Thy full command. 




BEFORE CHRISTMAS. 257 




BEFORE CHRISTMAS. 



HE Christmas-time draws on apace ; 

The happy crowds go up and down ; 

There's joy and hope in all the town 
And in each little maiden's face 



A look of expectation sweet, 

That comes of musing oft and long 
On what that day of gift and song 

Shall bring to her as offering meet. 

But I will sit alone and dream 

Of Him who gave the day its name ; 
And think of all His wondrous fame, 

And if to Him it strange doth seem 

That in these happy, careless ways, 
As often as the years come round, 
We mark with light, and joyful sound, 

His advent and His toilsome days. 



258 BEFORE CHRISTMAS, 

And deeper still my thoughts shall go, 
And ponder if He hears above, 
'Mid all the heavenly peace and love, 

Our weary talking to and fro ; 

Our asking how it all began, 

And what the secret of His power, 
That since He came until this hour, 

The world has said, " Behold the man ! " 

Behold the man ! Behold the God ! 

Ah, which to say, and how, and why ! 

In vain our tangled reasons try 
The path so many feet have trod. 

O man of sorrows, man of joy ! — 
Of joy for all Thy strife and scars, — 
Whereso Thou art among the stars, 

In peace that nothing can destroy, — ■ 

Though we our voices may not blend 

With that hoarse chant the centuries raise, 
Yet is it not a sweeter praise 

To say, " Our brother and our friend " ? 

And if beyond this verge of time, 
We know Thee better as Thou art. 
Wilt Thou not clasp us heart to heart, 

As fills our ears the heavenly chime ? 

1869. 



MODJESKA AS ROSALIND. 259 




MODJESKA AS ROSALIND. 

IS said, sweet singing always makes us sad ; 
But how could thy sweet playing serve us so ? 
When thou as Rosalind didst bravely go 
To the wild wood, in such strange habit clad 
As made thee seem a swashing martial lad, 
To thy Orlando ; but to us — ah, no ! 
Such grace as thine no man could ever show. 
Why, seeing that, were we not wholly glad ? 
To eye and ear each moment was delight. 
Not for our own sakes were we sad at heart, 

But that Will Shakspere, from death's envious night, 
Could not come back to see thy perfect art ; 
That he might say, O sweet beyond compare ! 
I dreamed of nothing that was half so fair. 



1884. 



26o TO A. W, R. 




TO A. W. R. 

ON READING HER BOOK OF POEMS CALLED " THE RING OF 
AMETHYST." 

]T came to me one perfect summer day 
Amid the tender beauty of the hills, 
Whose every niche a poet's memory fills 
With echoes of his own resounding lay. 
Died out the children's voices at their play, 
While sweet for me as lapse of mountain rills, 
Or fragrance that some rose's heart distils, 
Your gentle verses had with me their way. 
I read and read : the scene was all forgot ; 

Down dropped the sun above the poet's home ; 
The first faint stars came out in heaven's dome ; 
Alone with you, all other things were not ; 
Till sudden, pausing, lo, the purple mist 
Had made the hills a ring of amethyst / 

Chesterfield, July 5, 1878. 



CHARLES SUMNER. 261 




CHARLES SUMNER. 
Si monumentum requiris, circumspue. 



Y, look around ; but thou may'st not behold 
Aught built of stone and carved magnificent, 
With dome or spire high up towards heaven 
sent, 
And blazoned all with crimson and with gold. 
By no such wonders can his worth be told ; 
Not such indeed shall be his monument, 
Our statesman, who upon God's errands went, 
For freedom's sake the boldest of the bold. 

But look around, and say what thou dost see j 
Or think it solemnly with bated breath : 

A nation with no man who is not free ; 
A nation living after years of death ; 
And yet to live a life more pure and high 
Because this man for her could live and die. 



March, 1874. 



262 TO FREDERIC HENRY HEDGE. 




TO FREDERIC HENRY HEDGE. 

EIGHTY YEARS OLD, DEC. 12, 1S85. 

rt\0^ because thou hast sat beside the King 
l^lli- At the high feast ; nor yet because the queen, 
Our '' rare pale Margaret," thou hast often seen 
For naught of this, O friend, to thee we bring, 
This day, our simple, heartfelt offering 

Of thanks and praise ; but for that thou hast been 
Thyself one of the royal-hearted men. 
Wearing the crown, the sceptre, and the ring, 

As only they unto the purple born 
Can wear the symbols of their majesty ; 

And most because, with a right royal scorn 
Of all things base, thy spirit has been free 

From any fear that Truth will leave forlorn 
The man who loves and trusts her utterly. 



GRADUATION HYMN. 263 



HYMN 
Written for my Divinity-School Graduation. 




TERNAL Ruler of the ceaseless round 
Of circling planets singing on their way ; 
Guide of the nations from the night profound 

Into the glory of the perfect day ; 
Rule in our hearts, that we may ever be 
Guided, and strengthened, and upheld by 
Thee. 



We are of Thee, the children of Thy love, 
The brothers of Thy well-beloved Son ; 

Descend, O Holy Spirit, like a dove. 
Into our hearts, that we may be as one j 

As one with Thee, to whom we ever tend, 

As one with Him, our brother and our friend. 

We v/ould be one in hatred of all wrong, 
One in our love of all things sweet and fair, 

One with the joy that breaketh into song, 
One with the grief that trembles into prayer. 



264 GRADUATION HYMN. 

One in the power that makes Thy children free 
To follow truth, and thus to follow Thee. 

Oh, clothe us with Thy heavenly armor, Lord ! 

Thy trusty shield, Thy sword of love divine j 
Our inspiration be Thy constant word, 

We ask no victories that are not Thine ; 
Give or withhold, let pain or pleasure be. 
Enough to know that we are serving Thee. 

Cambridge, 1864. 



HYMN 

For a Friend's Graduation. 



^^I'ORTH from the calm and still retreat, 
Into the world so wide ; 
Forth from the gently rocking fleet, 
Into the rushing tide. 

We know 'I'hy seas are deep and wide, 
But all their waves are Thine ; 

And over them, our course to guide, 
Thy stars for ever shine. 



GRADUATION HYMN. 265 

Here have our eyes beheld their light, 

Now by it let us fly, 
Before the gale and through the night, 

To do Thy bidding high ; 

To bear our little freight of truth 

To every waiting shore ; 
To seek beyond the verge of youth, 

For ever more and more. 

Oh that each had a stancher ship, 

A crew more sternly bound, 
To follow the horizon's dip 

And sail the world around I 



Cambridge, 1868. 




266 DEDICATION HYMN. 




A DEDICATION HYMN. 



ERE in a corner of Thy house, 

Rock-ribbed and built since time began, 
And building yet with art divine 

Co-working with the art of man, 
Our hands, O God, have built a shrine, 
Our hearts have vowed to make it Thine. 

Here may we come with eager feet, 
To sing Thy love and learn Thy law, 

And quench our inmost being's thirst 
At those deep springs of sacred awe. 

Which underneath our being run. 

From sources higher than the sun. 

Here may the vastness of Thy house 
More clearly to our minds appear ; 

Its mystery grand and music sweet 
Grow ever to our hearts more dear ; 

And Thy dear face, the more we yearn, 

I'hrough every glowing window burn. 



ORDINATION HYMN. 



267 



1875- 



Oh, here may every thought be pure, 
And every passion self-controlled ; 

Here all our words be kind and true, 
And every purpose high and bold : 

So shall Thy presence fill the shrine, 

And all our hearts and lives be Thine. 




HYMN 

For a Friend's Ordination. 

ORD of all visions fair and sweet, 

Thy name we praise that here to-day 
We welcome one who did not dare. 
Thy vision seen, to disobey ; 



But up and followed on and on. 

Though rough the way and dark the niglit, 
Led ever by that threefold gleam, 

The True, the Beautiful, the Right. 



It lured him on through many lands ; 

Through generations strange and old ; 
To Moses with his face aglow. 

To Jesus with his lips of gold. 



268 



THE LAW OF LIBERTY, 



1870. 



No longer now in cloistered calm 
He feels its influence benign ; 

It leads him forth ; it leads him here, 
To make us his as he is Thine. 

Lord of all visions sweet and fair, 
Thou carest not for time or place ; 

Still as of old the promise stands, — 
The pure in heart shall see Thy face. 



THE LAW OF LIBERTY. 



Sun^ at a Festival of the Free Religious Association. 




HOU, whose name is blazoned forth 
On our banner's gleaming fold, 

Freedom ! thou whose sacred worth 
Never yet has half been told, 

Often have we sung of thee, 

Dear to us as dear can be. 



But to-night we sing of one 
Older, graver far, than thou ; 

With the seal of time begun 
Stamped upon her awful brow : 

Freedom, latest born of time, 

Knowest thou her form sublime t 



THE LAW OF LIBERTY. 269 

She is Duty : in her hand 

Is a sceptre heaven-brought ; 
Hers the accent of command, 

Hers the dreadful, mystic Ought ; 
Hers upon us all to lay 
Heavier burdens every day. 

But her bondage is so sweet ! 

And her burdens make us strong ; 
Wings they seem to weary feet, 

Laughter to our lips and song : 
Freedom, make us free to speed 

Wheresoever she may lead. 



June, 1876. 




270 LUC RE TI A MOTT, 




LUCRETIA MOTT. 

EAR noble woman, who hast lived so long 
And served so well the people's sorest need ! 
Who still, howe'er thy heart might inly bleed, 
Hast ever sung thy cheery household song ; 
Turning from strenuous battle against wrong, 
With wholesome care thy growing flock to feed, 
In pastures green their frolic feet to lead, — 
To thee the laurel crown doth well belong ; 

For thou hast shown an unbeHeving world, 
Most womanly of women, that no less 

In the hot field where deadly shafts are hurled. 
Women may keep their spirit's gentleness, 

Than when at home, in soft seclusion curled, 
They live unmindful of th^ '^jorld's distress. 

Philadelphia, 1878. 



WILLIAM HENRY FURNESS. 2/1 



WILLIAM HENRY FURNESS. 



Read at the Celebration of the Fiftieth Anniversary of his 
Settlement in Philadelphia. 




TANDING upon the summit of thy years, 
Dear elder brother, what dost thou behold, 
Along the way thy tireless feet have come 
From that far day, when young and fresh 
and bold. 
Hearing a voice that called thee from on high, 
Thou answeredst quickly, " Father, here am I." 

Fain would we see all that thine eyes behold ; 

And yet not all, for there is secret store 
Of joy and sorrow in each private heart, 

To which no stranger openeth the door. 
But thou canst speak of many things beside, 
While we a little space with thee abide. 

Tell us of those who fifty years ago 

Started thee forth upon thy sacred quest, 

Who all have gone before thee, each alone, 
To seek and find the Islands of the Blest. 

To-day methinks that there as well as here 

Is kept all tenderly thy golden year. 



2^2 WILLIAM HENRY FURNESS. 

Tell us, for thou didst know and love him well, 
Of Channing's face, — of those dilating eyes 

That seemed to catch, while he was with us here, 
Glimpses of things beyond the upper skies. 

Tell us of that weak voice, which was so strong 

To cleave asunder every form of wrong. 

Thou hast had good companions on thy way ; 

Gannett was with thee in his ardent prime, 
And with thee still when outward feebleness 

But made his spirit seem the more sublime. 
Till, like another prophet, summoned higher. 
He found, like him, a chariot of fire. 

And that beloved disciple was thy friend, 

Whose heart was blither than the name he bore, 

Who yet could hide the tenderness of May, 
And, bleaker than December, downward pour 

The tempest of his wrath on slavery's lie. 

And all that takes from man's humanity. 

And thou hast walked with our Saint Theodore, 
Our warrior-saint, well-named the gift of God, 

Whose manful hate of every hateful thing 
Blossomed with pity, e'en as Aaron's rod, 

And lips that cursed the priest and Pharisee 

Gathered more honey than the wilding bee. 



WILLIAM HENRY FURNESS. 273 

All these are gone, and Sumner's heart beneath 
Should make more pure the yet untainted snow ; 

Our one great statesman of these latter days, 
Happy wert thou his other side to know ; 

To call him friend, whom ages yet unborn 

Shall love tenfold for every breath of scorn. 

All these are gone, but one is with us still, 
So frail that half we deem she will not die, 

But slow exhale her earthly part away. 
And wear e'en here the vesture of the sky. 

LucRETiA, blessed among women she. 

Dear friend of Truth, and Peace, and Liberty. 

And one, whose form is as the Son of Man, 

Has been with thee through all these busy years ; 

Holden our eyes, and He to us has seemed 
As one seen dimly through a mist of tears ; 

But thou hast seen Him clearly face to face, 

And told us of His sweetness and His grace. 

Standing upon the summit of thy years. 
Dear elder brother, thou canst see the day 

When slavery's curse had sway in all the land, 
And thou art here, and that has passed away. 

We give thee joy that in its hour of pride 

Thy voice and hand were on the weaker side. 



274 WILLIAM HENRY FURNESS. 

But from thy clear and lofty eminence 

Let not thine eyes be ever backward turned, 

For thou canst see before as cannot we 

Who have not yet thy point of vantage earned. 

Tell us of what thou seest in the years 

That look so strange, seen through our hopes and fears, 

Nothing we know to shake thy steadfast mind ; 

Notliing to quench thy heart with doubt or fear; 
But higher truth and holier love revealed, 

And justice growing to man's heart more dear. 
And ever^'where beneath high heaven's cope, 
A deeper trust, a larger, better hope. 

There are some here that shall not taste of death 
Till they have seen the kingdom come, with power. 

O brave forerunner, wheresoe'er thou art, 
Thou wilt be glad with us in that glad hour. 

Farewell ! Until we somewhere meet again. 

We know in whom we have believed. Amen. 

January 12, 1875. 




EZRA STILES GANNETT, 275 




EZRA STILES GANNETT. 

T eve there shall be light," the promise runs 
In the dear volume that he loved so well , 
Ay, and for him the promise was fulfilled, 
When rang for him the solemn vesper-bell. 

His was no day of sweet, unsullied blue, 

And bright, warm sunshine on the grass and flowers , 
But many a cloud of loss and grief and pain 

Dropped its deep shadow on the fleeting hours. 

Clear were his morning hours, and calm and bright ; 

His sun shot up with splendid fiery beam ; 
And men were glad and revelled in its light. 

And leaped to welcome it from sleep and dream. 

Then came a cloud and overshadowed him, 
And chilled him with a presage as of death ; 

And never did it quite forsake his sky, 

But sought him often with its eager breath. 

For still, though hours were his serene and still, 
And radiant hours of steady, glowing noon, 

That cloud of pain was ever near to touch 
With quivering sadness every brightest boon. 



276 EZRA STILES GANNETT, 

And as his afternoon drew on to eve 

And still he lingered in the whitened field, — • 

The reapers were so few, till night should fall 
Fain would his hand the heavy sickle wield, — 

Darker it grew and darker o'er the land. 
And he was forced to lay his sickle by ; 

But did it brighten, then his hand was quick 
To seize once more its opportunity. 

So the day faded, and the evening came ; 

Then from the sky the clouds were furled away, 
And a great peace and beauty welcomed in 

The evening star with her benignant ray. 

And all the air was hushed and whispering, 
And all the sky was purely, softly bright ; 

And so the blessed promise was fulfilled : 

" At eve," it said, — " at eve there shall be light." 

But that fair evening did not end in night, 
With shadows deep and darkness all forlorn ; 

Just at its brightest he was snatched away 
Into the golden palaces of morn. 

And surely since the Master went that way, 
To welcome there earth's holiest and best. 

He has not welcomed one who loved him more 
Than he who leaned that evening on his breast 

August, 1871 



SEVEN TIMES ELEVEN. 277 




SEVEN TIMES ELEVEN. 

ROM seven times one the tender song went on 
To seven times seven, and there made an end ; 
But so, thank God, it has not been with thee 
And thy good years, O dear and blessed friend ! 

Thy seven times eight had passed ere first I knew 
The kindly welcome of thy pleasant face ; 

Thy seven times nine beheld thee full of years, 
But yet more full of gentleness and grace. 

Then came the goal, — the threescore years and ten ; 

Still sang thy heart its sweet and natural song : 
" Labor and sorrow " ? Nay, to thee I deem 

Labor and joy forevermore belong. 

For thou hast ever found thy sweetest joy 
In simple tasks of love and friendliness ; 

Finding, like one to me forever dear, 

That naught is easier than to cheer and bless. 



278 SEVEN TIMES ELEVEN, 

And so thy seven times eleven comes 
And finds thee laboring and loving still ; 

Striving, ere yet the day is wholly done, 
To fit thy task yet closer to His will. 

Work on, love on, in sorrow, yet in joy ; 

Another song of seven live to sing 
Ere, life well spent, thy winter turn at last 

To sudden fireshness like this month of spring. 

ft Somehow my lyre is broken in these days, 

Nor makes the music that it made of yore ; 
But 'mid the jar this note at least sounds true : 
God's peace be with thee now and evermore 1 

April 23, 18S2. 




AULD LANG SYNE, 279 




AULD LANG SYNE. 



T singeth low in every heart, 
We hear it each and all, — 
A song of those who answer not, 
However we may call ; 
They throng the silence of the breast, 

We see them as of yore, — 
The kind, the brave, the true, the sweet, 
Who walk with us no more. 

'Tis hard to take the burden up, 

When these have laid it down ; 
They brightened all the joy of life. 

They softened every frown ; 
But, oh, 'tis good to think of them. 

When we are troubled sore ! 
Thanks be to God that such have been, 

Although they are no more ! 

More home-like seems the vast unknown, 
Since they have entered there \ 



280 AULD LANG SYNE. 

To follow them were not so hard, 
Wherever they may fare ; 

They cannot be where God is not, 
On any sea or shore ; 

Whate'er betides, Thy love abides, 
Our God, for evermore. 

April, 1876. 



